To Be Queen

by Christy English

  He looked down at me, raising himself on one elbow. He ran one hand over my body’s curves, watching my breasts rise and fall with my breath beneath his hand. “You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.”

  I ran my hands along his chest and drew his own clothes off, first his tunic and hose, then his shirt. He was young, his arms and hands burnished from his time in the sun. His muscles were well crafted, as if by a sculptor. He did not look like the Greek statues I had seen in Byzantium. He was too much of a man for that. But he was beautiful.

  I pressed my lips against his chest, running my tongue over his skin until he gasped. I rose up over him, and mounted him, as I would a horse. Young as he was, he was no blushing maid. He knew what I was about, and lifted me effortlessly, until I had taken him in, and sheathed him with my inner fire.

  We both lost ourselves then, our bodies moving together as they had on my husband’s dance floor. This time we rode together as if in a race, a race where there would be two winners.

  I felt my climax rising within me like a tide, like a wave at dawn. Henry drew me beneath him, and rode me hard as that wave swamped me. I shuddered, my breath lost. I could not even gasp his name.

  He joined me then, his body trembling over mine. He shook as I had done, but harder, as if an earthquake had squeezed the breath from his lungs, as if he would never breathe again.

  He fell against me, as if someone had cut him down on the battlefield. He clutched me, his hand in the bronze softness of my hair. I could not move, for he held me fast, his heavy body on top of mine, as a stone on top of a tomb. Let me be dead, then. I was glad to die, if only he lay upon me.

  I laughed at this thought. Henry laughed with me, his gray eyes gleaming. He did not move to let me rise. I could breathe, if only barely, so I let him stay where he was.

  “There will be more of that before there is less,” he said. “I will not let you go.”

  “Not yet,” I answered.

  “Not ever. No other man will touch you again. I swear that, Eleanor.”

  “No?” I asked. “Not even my husband? Not even Louis?”

  “Do not name that milksop to me,” Henry said, resting his head against my breast. “I am your husband now. I, and no other.”

  “You, and no other,” I answered.

  He heard the truth in my voice. He raised his head and kissed me.

  We lay close for a long while, his warm body over mine. As I came back to myself, as I began once more to feel my limbs, my hands and feet, I stretched, as languid as a cat in the cream. It was then that I felt the dampness on my belly.

  He had withdrawn from me at the last.

  I felt a fury rise in me that I had seldom if ever felt. All my hatred for Louis and his weakness, all my sorrow over his constant rejection, rose up in me as one great mass. I thought at first that I would choke on it, or that my silent rage would set fire to the very ends of my hair.

  I could not shield my reaction from Henry, because I could not control myself.

  “You are angry,” he said. “What have I done to offend you?”

  “Your seed.” I could not bring myself to speak past that one word. My tongue had swelled, this time with ire.

  Henry raised one brow, and looked down at my body. He wiped away the dampness with linen taken from my bedside. When he leaned down to kiss me, I turned my head away.

  “There can be no son yet, Eleanor. I cannot leave him here behind me.”

  Henry’s voice was soft, his breath warm in my ear. Even so, he did not chide or cajole me. He faced me as his equal, even there, my body naked beneath his.

  I met his eyes, the fire in my heart beginning to go out. I saw then how weak I was with this man, how much I cared for him already. He had spilled his seed outside my body, and I had taken mortal offense.

  I would have to school myself to subtlety. I would have to guard myself and my feelings well. Henry was a part of me already. I saw that this would be my weakness, as well as my strength.

  I held his gaze for one long moment. He did not look away.

  “You do not want your first son to be King of France?” I asked. My tone was light, as if I made a joke. Henry knew, however, that I did not.

  “My firstborn son is safe at home in Normandy,” Henry answered.

  He did not soften this news with a smile or a caress. He did not toy with me, or treat me as less than I was. The pain of his other child burned in my breast.

  My jealousy warred with my newfound love. That was when I knew that this was no simple bargain, no political alliance with lines clearly drawn. This was something new, something never seen upon the earth. This would be a love affair and a bargain both, a marriage and an alliance together. The Church would never sanction it. Their priests would never say that a man and a woman could face each other as Henry and I did that night, as equals, with no trickery, with no lies or deception, with no false vows between us.

  It was his honesty I met when I leaned up and pressed my lips to his. It was his truth I tasted, as he ran his tongue over mine. That night, beneath the canopy of my marriage bed, we met as equals, and took joy in each other’s strength.

  Henry entered me again. This time he led, as the hounds lead the hunter, and I followed. I gasped under him, my pleasure rising quickly to swamp my reason. Henry did not follow me over that edge until I had tasted that pleasure not once, but twice.

  His own pleasure crested then, rising in the gray of his eyes to drown him. We lay together afterward, cast up on an empty shore, where there was only he and I, alone together.

  “I love you, Eleanor.”

  I did not answer, but pressed my hand over his beating heart. He lay down with me again, his body over mine, shielding me from the world. He drew the wolf-fur blanket over both of us, and pressed himself to me, breathing gently into my hair.

  “Sleep now,” he said. “I will wake you, just before dawn.”

  I did as he bade me. I slept, deep and dreamless, his body laid over mine. And in the morning, before dawn, he woke me with a kiss, just as he had said he would.

  Chapter 28

  Palace of the City

  Paris

  August 1151

  HENRY LEFT ME SO EARLY THAT AMARIA HAD NOT YET RETURNED to me. I rose when he did, drawing on my robe of sable. Henry ran his hand along it, pressing his palm against my body, smoothing the soft fur along the curve of my hip.

  “Louis confirms my duchy this morning, and then I will be gone.”

  “I will see you in the chapel,” I said.

  Henry smiled at me, a wicked gleam in his eyes. “You cannot avoid it, my queen. You will be seeing me, off and on, for the rest of your life.”

  “More on than off, I trust.”

  He cocked one eyebrow at me, drawing me close in the circle of his embrace. “For certain, lady. But it will be a big empire.”

  I found I did not want to talk of duchies or of power, or of the political alliance our marriage might bring. I pressed myself against him, opening the fur of my gown so that I could feel the leather of his leggings against my naked thighs. My breath caught in my throat, and Henry kissed me again, his tongue moving leisurely over mine, as if we had all morning for our love play.

  Both of us knew, however, that we did not.

  Henry groaned, and I knew he wanted me as much as I wanted him. This was a new thing, this sweetness, knowing that my lover craved my body as much as I craved his. And it was a heady feeling, to bring a man of Henry’s power under my sway. I was drunk on it, after only one night.

  Henry stepped away from me. I left my gown open, that he might see my naked body in the firelight. I knew he would think of me as I was now, later, when we were apart, both of us surrounded by enemies.

  “Until the chapel, Eleanor.”

  He left the way he had come and I fastened the door closed behind him. Amaria emerged from my antechamber then. She must have been listening at the door, as all good servants do.

  Amaria’s dark blue e
yes met mine, and for once she did not frown. Her smile was soft, like a young girl’s, a smile I had not seen on her face in many years, if ever.

  “He will make you a good husband, lady. He is full of fire.”

  I did not answer her, or scold her for her impertinence. I drew her close, and took her hand in mine. I held it only for one moment, but she knew more from that touch than my words could tell.

  Later that morning, I stood under the canopy in Louis’ chapel, my husband at my side. Though we were swearing in the Duke of Normandy, the Parisians cared little, and few had shown up for the ceremony. Henry knelt before my husband, as pious as a monk. I would have laughed had I not been in control of myself. As it was, Henry met my eyes as he rose once more to his feet, and gave me a wink.

  Geoffrey of Anjou stood behind a column and stared at me with loathing. I would have thought that he would take more pleasure in this day, since he had worked so hard, and spilled so much blood, some of it his own, to make it so. But Geoffrey cared little for the ceremony. He did not look at Henry at all. Instead, he glared at me, his mouth puckered as if he had eaten something foul. I wondered what in the last day had made him hate me, and so openly, especially since my father had been his fast and loyal friend. His son Henry had taken a lover before. Surely Geoffrey did not begrudge his son a little pleasure, taken in the dark reaches of the night.

  As I watched Geoffrey from the corner of one eye, I began to see that he was more intelligent than I had given him credit for. He did not begrudge Henry the hours between my sheets. I saw in the bitterness of his gaze that he had the effrontery to hunger for me himself.

  I had spent so long surrounded by the hatred of the French court that I had stopped looking for lust in the eyes of my enemies. As I looked into the dark blue of Geoffrey’s gaze, I saw lust as well as loathing. The combination gave me pause, and I took one step back. Louis reached for me, and took my hand. He was not sensitive to the eddies and tides that ran throughout his court, but he was still sometimes sensitive to me.

  “Eleanor, are you all right?”

  I met his eyes and smiled. Louis had been my ally for almost fifteen years. In some ways I would miss him, though I hungered to be free even with his hand on mine.

  “I am well, my lord king. I thank you.”

  Henry heard our exchange and raised one ginger-colored brow. It came to me then, all in one rush, how much he and I had shared the night before, how much we would still share in the months and years to come. I was giddy with the knowledge that I would have a husband strong enough to meet me on equal ground. I took my hand from Louis’ and fingered the jet and pearl rosary at my waist. Brother Matthew came to Louis’ side and distracted him, as I knew he would.

  I walked out of the chapel surrounded by my ladies. We went the long way to my rooms through the inner gardens. The sun had come out finally, though the ornamental trees still dripped with rain.

  Amaria stood guard on one side of me, and my Parisian waiting woman Priscilla on the other, when Geoffrey of Anjou stepped out of the shadows of the keep.

  I smiled, thinking that surely he was not clumsy enough to display his enmity before my ladies. But I found I overestimated him.

  I stopped, since Geoffrey stood in front of me. I wondered for a moment if he would have the effrontery to touch me, if he would take my arm and drag me into the darkness of the palace.

  Geoffrey knew that Henry and I had spent the night together, and in his eyes, the knowledge did not raise Henry as it should have, but lowered me. I remembered suddenly all the distant tales I had heard, even in Poitiers, about this man and his anger toward women. He and my father had been friends all their lives, but even as a child, I had heard how this man stooped to striking his wife, the Dowager Empress Maude, as if she were a recalcitrant mule or a dog. My father had always considered a man’s business his own, and I had never questioned it, since there was not a man born anywhere on the earth with the courage to raise his hand to me. But now, as I looked at Henry’s father, I saw that his weakness in war was linked to his weakness with women. His fury, however, was strong.

  I blinked and took him in, as the red Plantagenet rage I had also heard of mounted in his face, making his skin darken to the color of puce.

  “I think you are no better than a whore,” he said to me.

  My ladies heard him, and drew together in horror, twittering like birds in a hedge. Amaria stood frozen, her contempt like shards of ice. I felt the cold of it on my arm as she touched me.

  I raised one hand, and my women withdrew. Priscilla led them out, that they might continue work on the altar cloth for the cathedral at St.-Denis. I waited in silence until they were gone, my smile never wavering.

  Geoffrey’s color rose, until I thought he would turn purple. I wondered if he might fall at my feet in a fit of apoplexy, and if he did, what on earth I would tell Henry.

  “Indeed?” I said. “And who gave you leave to think?”

  Geoffrey’s mouth opened and closed like a fish cast on dry land. I pressed my advantage while I had it, for I did not know how long we might be alone.

  “You are a weak man, and a fool,” I said. “This is not Anjou, where women can be bullied at your will. I am Queen of France. I am Duchess of Aquitaine. You will keep a civil tongue in your head if ever again you have the good fortune to speak to me.”

  “Father, please leave us.”

  Where Henry came from, I did not know, so intent was I on the new enemy before me. Henry approached from behind, his words a bulwark to shelter me. I watched as Geoffrey swallowed his ire out of respect for his son.

  Henry could control him, then. That was to the good. I had come too far, and walked my own path too long, to allow a fool like Geoffrey of Anjou to interfere with me.

  Henry touched my arm once, then took his place beside me. It was the gentleness of that touch that silenced Geoffrey in the end. I saw the defeat rise in the blue of his eyes, and drown his reason. Henry had made his choice already. Even Geoffrey, overwhelmed by his lust and hatred for me, could see that.

  The Count of Anjou bowed once before turning on his heel and stalking away. I watched him go. His bow had not been for me.

  “You have made an enemy there,” Henry said, his eyes on his father’s retreating back.

  “He is not my first,” I said.

  Henry’s lips quirked, and I found myself wishing that we were alone once more in my rooms, that I might feel those lips on my skin again.

  “Nor your last,” he answered.

  I laughed, and the warmth of that laughter bound us closer, so that Henry stepped toward me. He raised one hand, and slid one finger along my cheek.

  “I hope I die with your laughter in my ears.”

  His eyes were on my lips, and I knew had we been anywhere else, he would have kissed me.

  “Not for years yet.”

  “No.” Henry’s gray eyes met mine. “I still have a great deal to do.”

  “Does it pain you, that your father loathes me?”

  “He loathes power in women. There is a difference.”

  I thought of the Empress Maude, and of how she should have been queen in England. I thought of Geoffrey of Anjou, and of how a weak man might hate a woman of strength. I had been lucky. As weak as Louis was, in all our years together, he had never hated me.

  “I do not trust your father,” I said.

  “You need trust only me. He is loyal to my cause.”

  I smiled. “And what cause is that?”

  Henry laughed. “Myself.”

  At the door into the keep, there was a flutter of cloth. A boy came out, a boy only a year or so younger than Henry. He stood in the doorway and stared at us. Amaria must have known him, for she did not order him away.

  Henry raised one hand, and the boy withdrew. He left quickly once Henry motioned for him to go, but not before I caught his furtive looks, and his dark red hair. He moved with stealth for one so large, like a skulking beast. Shorter than Henry, this boy was
as broad, his arms well muscled, his eyes small. He stared at me for one long moment, but when Henry gestured again, he fled.

  “My brother. My father’s namesake. Geoffrey the Younger.”

  “He has an ill-omened look about him,” I said.

  “You have a sharp eye,” Henry answered me, his arm around my waist. I leaned against him, that he might feel the softness of my curves, covered as they were in silk and fur. “He is a thorn in my side, but one I can easily draw out.”

  “He is your father’s favorite,” I guessed.

  Henry’s eyes grew cold. “He was. He still would be, I suppose, but for my triumph in Normandy.”

  I did not answer. Men did not change their favorite children as women changed their gowns. I saw in that moment that his family was one of hidden depths and valleys. Henry was leaving Paris that afternoon, and had little time to explain the intricacies of his family to me. I would ask after such things among my spies. I must know the lay of that land before I married into it.

  Henry leaned down and kissed me, his tongue playing over mine in a delicious dance that pushed politics and family to the back of my mind. He drew away, and I followed him, so that he claimed my lips again.

  “Eleanor, I must go.”

  “I know. I thought you would be gone already.”

  “I would not leave without a word between us.”

  “We have no need of words,” I answered. “All our words were spoken last night.”

  Henry moved back from me, and reached into the pouch at his waist. I saw he had been in the garden before me. He had filched one of my roses from the arbor, a Persian rose with red velvet petals, a rose bred to bear no thorns.

  The flowers had just opened the day before. No doubt he had come before the ceremony to fetch this rose for me, or perhaps he had sent someone else to pluck it. Now he held it between his callused fingers.

  The deep red rose had not been crushed in the pouch that had borne it, but it had been pressed, so that now the petals smelled of spring, and of Antioch, where I had first seen such flowers without thorns to mar them. Now, as I stood there with Henry, that rose smelled like my future.