To Be Queen

by Christy English

  Triumph lit his eyes, as it had in that rainy garden. He raised his glass to me, a gesture that warmed me almost as much as his touch had. I turned from him then, and ate my food without tasting it. Louis offered a bit of seasoned pork, which I took but did not touch.

  I drank my wine, and kept my own counsel until the fruit was brought out and the minstrels came down from their gallery for the dancing.

  The tables were taken up on the lower floor, and the rushes strewn with thyme and rosemary. The scent of those herbs rose from the ground below the dais. I breathed in those mingled scents, as well as the smell of woodsmoke, and took in the light of the evening fires. Lamps burned, hanging from chains above the dance floor. All around that stone hall, the light worked to chase away the shadows, but darkness lined the walls. As I watched, lovers paired off, some to the dancing and others to the outer darkness. For the first time in years, since I was a young girl at home safe in my father’s court, I wished I might be one of them.

  Henry was standing by me then, bowing so low that I thought he might stoop to kneel. He did not address me but kept his eyes on Louis.

  “My lord king, may I have the honor of a dance with your queen?”

  Louis smiled fondly. It never crossed his mind that this man, this young conqueror, would have any darker motive but to take my hand.

  Henry did not speak to me, but led me by the hand into the motion of the dancers. All eyes were on us, though I would soon be free and no longer wear a crown. Though Louis was casting me aside and everyone knew it, that night, I was still queen.

  I tossed my head, so that my hair fell over one shoulder in a bronze cascade. It had begun to come unraveled from the simple style Amaria had put it in. As it fell undone beneath my coronet, I found I did not care. The Parisians looked scandalized, but so they did even when I knelt in church.

  “You wore green,” Henry said finally, his hand over mine.

  We began to move in the elaborate pattern of the dance. I did not have to wait a moment or hesitate to discover which way he intended to move, as I had often done with so many other men. Our bodies moved together without thought, as if we had been born to it.

  “Did I?” I asked. “My women dress me. I rarely think to look at their choices, for all my gowns are as fine as the rest.”

  He laughed low, so that no one else could hear him. He drew me close in the dance, and leaned as if to bow to me, his lips coming close to my ear. “Liar.”

  I laughed then, all pretense at coolness fled. Henry laughed with me, and all in Louis’ court turned to look at us, Geoffrey of Anjou included.

  Only Louis did not look down from his dais, for Brother Matthew sat with him. Louis’ new confessor had taken my place at table. My husband’s fair golden head was bent, listening to all his churchman said. The rest of the court saw Henry and me together, but Louis never did.

  Then the dance turned me away, my back to the dais, so that I was moving among the courtiers once more. Louis fell away from me like a dream at morning.

  I took in the sight of Henry, standing by my side in his clothes of silk. He had worn wool in the garden that afternoon, a tunic and hose made for riding, or for war. He wore silk now as a king might, but casually, as if he knew his own worth.

  As the dance ended, I found myself basking in the light of his eyes. Here, then, was a man to meet my fire. Here at last was a man to match my strength. What a shame that he was so young, and that I was married already.

  Henry returned me to the dais, and bent over my hand. He spoke low, as if offering his fealty, but his voice was not subservient. “I will come to you tonight. Look for me.”

  He left me gasping at his audacity. I would have laughed, but I had no breath. Louis nodded to me, and I sat once more at his side. I did not stir from the dais again that night.

  Before long, Henry disappeared, but his father stayed, glowering at me all the while. I had made an enemy there. Geoffrey of Anjou clearly did not want the likes of me near his son.

  But I could have told him, had he had the courage to ask, that I had not chosen Henry. Henry had chosen me. Surely even Geoffrey of Anjou knew the difference.

  Chapter 27

  Palace of the City

  Paris

  August 1151

  ONCE LOCKED SAFE IN MY ROOMS, ALL MY WOMEN DISMISSED but for Amaria, I knew that Henry could not come to me there in my husband’s keep. Still, I hoped for him, as a peasant farmer hopes for rain after months of drought. I called myself a fool, but I sat waiting, a goblet of wine in my hand, my eyes and ears turned toward the door.

  There came a scratching at the hidden door behind the tapestry beside my bed. Amaria and I had used that passage earlier in the day to slip past my women. As far as I knew, no one but Louis, Amaria, and I knew of its existence.

  At the sound of that scratching, Amaria was on her feet in an instant, her blade out. I rose more slowly, running my hand through my hair. My heart began to pound, as it had when I ran across my father’s fields as a girl. It was Henry, and I knew it. He must have followed us earlier, without being seen.

  I laid my hand on Amaria’s arm, and went to open the door. Henry stood in the dark of the hidden corridor, a lamp in one hand, and a scroll in the other. Perhaps he had written me love poetry, and came now to read it to me. The thought, unlikely as it was, made me laugh as I stepped back from the doorway and let him in.

  “My lord duke. You are welcome to this place.”

  “No duke yet, my lady. That is still for your husband to say, come the morrow.”

  He spoke of the ceremony that would confirm his position, but we both knew, as all the court did, that such a ceremony was a formality only. He had won his mother’s lands back by force of arms. Louis would not stand in his way.

  Amaria frowned, closing and locking the door behind him, hiding it once more behind the tapestry of Saint Paul at prayer. Though she frowned, her blade was sheathed and hidden in her sleeve already.

  “You may leave us,” I told her. “I will send for you, if we have need.”

  Amaria transferred her glower to me, but left through the front door, to take up her post as guard in my audience chamber. My sitting room would be cold that time of night. She wrapped herself in furs before she left me.

  I watched Henry where he stood by my mahogany table. Its top was polished to a high sheen, and gleamed in the light of the candles I had set by. Henry put his lamp down, and laid the scroll next to it.

  He shrugged off his concealing cloak, and I had to master myself to keep from breathing in too sharply. He was not conventionally beautiful. He had not Louis’ grace, soft features, or golden hair. But Henry of Normandy was compelling. Every catlike move he made called to me. There, alone in my rooms, he reminded me of a great lion turned loose among common men. I had never known anyone like him.

  “Do you come to ask for my support against Stephen? You may have it, without asking,” I said. “I have always despised weak men.” I dismissed his rival for the throne of England with one wave of my hand.

  “Have you?” he asked. “That must have made your marriage difficult.”

  “You are impertinent.”

  “But not wrong.”

  I held my tongue for a long moment, for fear I might laugh again.

  “I have something to show you, if you would do me the honor, my lady.”

  I came to his side when he beckoned me, breathing in the scent of sandalwood on his skin. I stepped close, knowing that I tempted him, knowing that I tempted myself. Whatever he thought to show me, we both knew why he was really there. I had drawn a furred cloak around me to hide my lawn shift. His eyes were heated, and he smiled as if he knew what my body looked like, fur or no.

  He did not touch me, but opened the scroll on the table before us. He took the lamp, and set it on one side of the vellum to hold it down. In that soft light, I noticed for the first time that his lashes were ginger and bronze, almost the same color as my own hair.

  “Look at what
I have brought you. What do you see?”

  I looked away from him, and down at the vellum spread before me. My lips quirked without my commanding them.

  “I see a map,” I said. “A map of my lands, the lands of France, and England, the kingdom you seek.”

  “You see far,” Henry said. His eyes were serious now. His lust was still there, but held in check, like dogs snapping at their leashes. I saw that he was a man in control of himself always. It would be no different here in my rooms than on a battlefield.

  “When you are done with Louis, these will be your lands again, unencumbered.” Henry traced the Aquitaine and Poitou, and all my other holdings.

  “These lands I hold already.” Henry’s blunt, callused finger outlined the borders of Brittany, Anjou, and Normandy.

  “The Vexin I will reclaim from Louis,” he said.

  “Will you indeed?” I arched one brow.

  He met my eyes, and smiled. “Give me time, my lady. You will see.”

  He looked back to the map under his hand, and traced the outline of England and Ireland, pressing his palm down on the kingdom his mother had lost, the kingdom Geoffrey of Anjou could not hold for her.

  “England will be mine, in three years’ time,” he said.

  “So soon?”

  “Sooner if I have my way.”

  “And you always get your way.”

  “Yes.”

  Henry’s gray eyes fired with his hunger for me. For a moment, I thought he might drop his hands from the map he showed me, and take me in his arms. I was trying to tempt him to it, but he did not move. I felt the tension in him, as he fought himself. Not even Raymond had shown the control that this man had.

  “Lady, attend me. Just one moment more.”

  I looked down to the map on the table. Henry cradled my lands and his, those he held now and those he sought to hold, between the palms of his two hands.

  “These lands we might claim together, lady, once you are free. If you would have me.”

  “Have you?” I asked. “Is that not why you have come here? What have our lands to do with that?”

  Already, I saw what he was getting at; I saw where he would lead me. But I would not speak it aloud. It would be he who offered all to me.

  His eyes met mine again, and along with his lust, I saw his power. It was as potent as anything I had ever seen. It made me sway toward him, until I caught myself, one hand on the table between us. My palm rested between his, on the center of the map. He raised one hand, and laid it over mine.

  “Do you think I seek to seduce you for my pleasure only?” Henry asked. “You are queen. You are duchess. And you are mine.”

  I tried to draw my hand from beneath his, but he held me fast. My breath caught, and my heart thundered. I waited until he spoke.

  “We will hold these lands, together. Between the two of us, we will build the greatest empire seen since the time of Charlemagne.”

  My old dream rose to haunt me, the dream that had died on the road to Antioch. I recoiled from Henry, for I wanted what he offered too badly. He saw my need in my eyes. He did not let me go.

  “You will marry me,” he said. “You will be my queen.”

  “You wear no crown yet.”

  “I will. I promise you. And when I wear one, so will you.”

  “I wear a crown already.”

  “How many women have said that they wore two crowns in a lifetime?”

  “None.”

  “You will say it, Eleanor. I will make it so. I will set a second crown upon your head, and we will rule these lands together.”

  “As partners?” I asked.

  “And allies,” he answered. “When I am in Normandy, you will rule in England as my queen.”

  “Your regent?”

  “Yes.”

  “In name only, while your lords and ministers rule in my stead?”

  “You will rule in fact, not just in name. I have heard your name spoken all my life. Now I have seen you, and I know you are my equal. No other woman in all the world can claim that. Say you will join me, Eleanor. Say you will be mine.”

  “What you offer is not possible.”

  “I have built my life on the impossible. And here I am.”

  “Here you are.”

  In the end, I did not hesitate. I had never been one to stop myself from taking what I wanted. That moment with Henry was no different.

  “If you will be mine,” I said, “I will be yours.”

  Henry smiled, raising my hand to his lips. I thought he would kiss my fingertips to seal our bargain, but at the last, he turned my hand over in his own, and pressed his lips to my palm. The heat of his mouth caught at the fire already burning in my body, until I thought I would lose all reason. Still, he stared at me, his own fire raging in his eyes. His tongue darted out, and licked the center of my palm, so that I lost my breath.

  “Done,” he said. “So be it.”

  He did not draw me to the bed, even then. He raised his other hand from the table, and the map of vellum drew up once more into a scroll. The brush of the pigskin was soft in my ears, a gentle sweep of sound. I stood, transfixed, as Henry drew me closer.

  “I have had many women,” he said. “But you will be the last.”

  I knew even as he spoke that he was lying. He was more than ten years younger than I was. No man could stay faithful to a woman for a lifetime, save perhaps Louis. But I found that lie was sweet in my ears. I found myself leaning closer, the heat in my belly rising, as Henry’s lips played once more against the skin of my palm.

  The firelight surrounded us, casting our shadows upon the walls. We were cut apart from the world beyond those stones, from the life of the French court, from the life I had known. I felt as if my father lived yet, and stood guard over us in the next room. I felt as if I had never known fear or loss or death. As if the world and all its folly, the price I had paid for power, the price I would go on paying, could not touch me.

  I stepped forward, and raised my hand to his cheek.

  It was a gentle gesture, not like me at all. Henry seemed to know it, as he seemed to know me; he understood me from the first. I stayed close to him, my palm on the rough sandpaper of his cheek. He had shaved before coming to me, but his beard had started to grow out again already.

  “Eleanor,” he said. “There is someone else in your eyes.”

  “No,” I said. “There is not.”

  He did not blink or drop his gaze from mine. It was as if I had not spoken.

  “You love a man,” he said. “Not Louis.”

  I tried never to think of Raymond. It did no good to think of him, so I did not. My mind and heart had done my bidding since I was a very young girl. Only now, with Henry’s gray gaze boring into mine, did I feel again the pain of what I had lost when Raymond died.

  Of course, I could not tell him that. I opened my mouth to lie, but Henry spoke before I could utter a word.

  “No, don’t tell me. It doesn’t matter. I would have no lies between us.”

  “He is dead.”

  Henry stared into the green of my eyes. He did not speak, and for a long moment I wondered if the deal was done before it had even begun. I wondered if he would not raise me up, and take me as his wife, even for the kingdom of Charlemagne, even for the lives of all our sons to come.

  He raised his hands then, and cradled my face between them. Something beyond lust bound us, something time could not touch. I saw it as we stood alone with no one between us, no kingdoms, no crowns, no children, no losses. That night, there was only Henry and I, alone together in a room.

  He was a man with a duchy he had wrested from the dead, a man with a kingdom still to conquer. I was a woman with a broken marriage and a lost dream, with only daughters to show for the last fifteen years of my life. But Henry did not see that when he looked at me. Nor did he see only the Aquitaine, and Poitou, and all the green and fertile lands that lay between them. When Henry looked into my eyes, he saw my soul. Without all else to
play for, the fact that he knew me would have been enough.

  “Know this, Eleanor. For us, there will be only one another. I will have no rivals between us. There is only room enough in my bed for two.”

  I did not answer him at once. I did not fob him off with a smile or a lie or a glib truth. I took him in, the gray of his eyes and the ginger-colored lashes that framed them, and beyond that, his soul, staring back at me. “All right,” I answered him. “So be it.”

  Those words were my seal on the bargain that we had already made. Henry drew me to him and I felt his true strength. The warmth of his arms enveloped me, and for the first time since my father died, I felt as if I were protected, shielded from the world. This was an illusion, but I welcomed it.

  Henry’s lips were soft on mine, tentative, exploring the contours and the curves of my mouth. He tasted of the burgundy we had drunk at dinner, and of the spiced venison we had eaten at the high table. He smelled of sandalwood, and clean linen, sun-dried and crisp. I pressed myself against him, as if his wholesome light might find its way from the contours of his muscles and sinews, into my bones.

  He laughed a little, low in his throat, lifting his mouth from mine. He smiled, and I smiled back at him, for he did not mock me, and I knew it. His appreciation and regard for me rang even in the dark softness of his laughter. Warmth flooded my body, until I thought my blood might catch fire. All this he did with just the sound of his voice, his hand on my waist, the other in my hair.

  “You have been too long neglected, Eleanor. You will find yourself well loved in my bed.”

  I raised my head, and caught his lips with mine. I drew him down with me onto the bed, casting aside my fur wrap, so that my body was clear beneath my shift in the firelight. Henry caught his breath, and his hand trembled as he reached for me. His desire was so strong that I thought he might swallow his tongue. My lust was thick in the air already, shimmering like a mist over my skin. I reached for him and pulled him down to me. He laid his body over mine, his mouth covering my own. Our tongues tangled together, and his hands ran over me, first over my shift, then under it. My skin warmed beneath his callused palms, and I pressed myself against him. He would not be rushed, but drew my shift up and over my head in one smooth motion.