Princess Of France (The Queen's Pawn Book 2)

by Christy English

  “I will leave you now. If you have need of anything, ring this bell, and my man will see to your comfort.”

  William raised one hand and a man of forty stepped forward and bowed as low to me as if I were a queen. I forced myself to be gracious. At my nod, he retreated into the shadows cast by the silk-lined hangings above our heads.

  I was surprised to see William command men so much older than himself. As if I were reading his thoughts in a book, I saw that he had much to say to me. It would wait until we were alone, with the bedroom door closed behind us.

  As he kissed my hand, his lips lingered. I wondered if he had not touched me before because he had not wanted to take a liberty.

  When William rose once more to his full height, I could no longer read his eyes. He left us with my favorite wine and pears set down between us and went to speak to the captain of his ship.

  William checked the trunks my dowry was stowed in, to see to it that they were well secured. My new gowns had been packed as soon as they were shown to me and placed in trunks along with bolts of fine cloth and jewels.

  It was strange to see my husband’s standard flying over our heads. I had grown so used to seeing my father’s fleur de lys, and the lions of Henry Plantagenet, that I had come to think of them as the only standards in the world.

  The men on that barge wore my husband’s colors of red and gold. Though a boy, William had power enough to command an army.

  His men-at-arms and their families had served the House of Bellême time out of mind. I had always thought my family the oldest, the one to inspire loyalty – indeed, the only family worth serving. The House of Bellême had just as long a lineage, and as much pride, as the royal House of France.

  We spent our wedding night in a monastery outside of Rouen. It was a small house, endowed by William’s great-grandfather. The monks were solicitous, and happy to see us. We dined on mutton and fresh greens from the garden. I was surprised when William ate his vegetables with such relish. At court, such things were cooked to a pulp, if they were ever eaten at all.

  “I am open to new things,” he said.

  We dined alone, for Marie Helene had been given her own room. She helped me take off my jewels and brushed out my hair, laying my brother’s sapphires in their casket, locking it carefully.

  “I wonder if I must send them back,” I said.

  “No.” William spoke as he stepped into the room. “They are yours now.”

  Marie Helene left us. Her hand lingered on mine. I saw the knowledge of my pain there, a mirror of her own. A man I had known for a few days was not a sorrow to rival the loss of a much beloved husband. I pressed her hand once before she drew it away.

  The door closed behind her. I stood by the bed wearing only my linen shift and a thin shawl. I saw hunger in my husband’s eyes. But William turned from me at once and spoke of the food he had ordered for our dinner. I wondered if I had deceived myself. God help him, I was old enough to be his mother.

  Though I sat across from him in the firelight all evening, he did not look at me again. In addition to my pain over the loss of Jean Pierre, I felt my age for the first time in my life. I wondered how I would be able to bear a marriage with a man so much younger than myself. I reminded myself that ours was a political alliance and to set aside my vanity.

  When our food was taken away, we lingered over our wine. I looked toward the marriage bed, but my pride would never allow me to ask him whether he would share it. Perhaps our marriage was to be one of convenience only, though surely a man as young as he was wanted children.

  A tide of shame rose in me. I was so old, who knew if I could still breed? The shadow of my age haunted me. For the first time, I thought what our marriage might mean to this boy, and the future of his House.

  “Alais, come here.”

  It was the first time William ever used my given name. I sat with him on the great bed that the abbot had blessed for us. We both knew our duty, whatever our personal feelings. We must lie together at least once and bind our alliance in truth.

  I waited for him to touch me, as Henry once had done. All thoughts of Jean Pierre, I pushed to the back of my mind, where I could lock them away. I prayed to the Holy Mother to help me with this, and She answered.

  She took pity on me, for my pain lifted. All I could smell was the dust from the fading tapestries in that tiny room. The scent of the roses in John’s tent faded, as did the memory of the night I had spent holding Jean Pierre’s hand.

  William took my hand in his and turned it over so that he could look onto my palm. He stared at it so long that I thought to make a joke that he had turned gypsy and wished to tell my fortune. When he met my eyes, the pain I saw there took my breath away.

  “Alais,” he said again. “Lady. We have wronged you.”

  I felt a touch of hope. I thought of Jean Pierre, and of how I might send word to him. “The priest was a fake,” I said.

  William laughed, the shadows chased from his eyes for the space of a breath.

  “No, my lady. The priest was real. It is I who am false.”

  I schooled my face to blankness and reined in my thoughts.

  “Lady, I am a man with a taste for other men.”

  I knew this already. He and my brother had been lovers. William loved my brother still. I wondered why he was telling me this.

  “I see that you understand me.” William cradled my hand in his, as if it were made of spun glass, as if it and I might both break if he breathed too heavily.

  “You prefer the company of men,” I said.

  “Yes.”

  I had seen the light of lust in his eyes when he first came into the room, when he found me in my shift and little else. I was old, but my body was still slim, my breasts high and my thighs firm, for I had only been brought to childbed once. I had seen desire his eyes before he damped it down and turned away.

  I knew in that moment why my brother had joined us in marriage. I was too old to bear children and this boy had no inclination to father any. My brother wanted the boy’s line to die out for some reason.

  “William.”

  He flinched at the use of his given name, but his hand tightened on mine.

  “I have done much in my life that I am not proud of. I was forced to things in my youth that I would never have done in good conscience.”

  He flinched as I spoke of Henry, even in this oblique way. But I knew that if I did not speak of it now, I never would. Some things needed to be said before we went on.

  “I will never judge you, in this life or the next. Your soul is between you and God.”

  “So, you think I am damned then?”

  I heard youth in his voice for the first time, and I grasped his hand in both of mine. “You are not damned. No more than any one of us. We are all sinners before God. We are all outside His Grace.”

  William kissed me, his lips warm and soft on mine. I felt his breath catch in his throat. I wondered what man had been able to convince this boy that he could look only to men for pleasure.

  “I cannot love you, even once” he said. “It would be a lie, a promise of something that I cannot give.”

  His hand was warm on mine. I felt my new life receding from me, the life I had sworn to live. A lady who kept to her place at her husband’s side out of duty, but whose duty was fulfilled. If we never consummated the marriage, it could easily be overthrown.

  I thought of the blue of Jean Pierre’s eyes. I remembered the warmth of his hand on mine. He would have married me and kept me safe. I had thought when I wed this boy that I would be beyond my brother’s reach for the rest of my life. I saw now that this hope was just one more illusion, like all the rest. I would have cursed fate, my brother, and William, but I had lived too long. I knew what came of cursing and of bitterness. Eleanor had taught me that.

  I rose and stood close to the lamp, so that William might see my face and know that I was not lying. “Husband, I have sworn that your honor is mine. And so it is, until my death.
I am strong enough for this. Believe me when I say that I have faced worse.”

  William knelt at my feet and hid his face in the folds of my shift. I caressed his golden hair and let him weep. His truth weighed heavily on him, and now he could lay that burden down.

  I looked into the fire as I held my young husband. I thought of the look on my brother’s face as he had left us in the chapel. He had known what he was leaving me to.

  7

  All That Is Lost

  William did not sleep in my bed that night but, despite my entreaties, curled up in his cloak and slept on the floor like a dog.

  He was gone when I woke at dawn and Marie Helene came to rouse me. “My lady, I have something to confound them.”

  I saw the bladder of pig’s blood hidden under her cloak, and I laughed.

  “Lady,” she hissed. “Be still. The monks will hear.”

  I stifled my laughter with difficulty and helped her to spread a little false blood on the cold sheets of my marriage bed. Marie Helene had expected the sheets to be mussed, and my husband’s bolster to have been dented with the weight of his head.

  She saw in a moment that I had spent the night alone. I could not speak of it, even to her. She knew me well, even after all those years, and did not question me.

  “They will think me a virgin indeed,” I said.

  Marie Helene hid the bladder of pig’s blood the moment before the monks’ servant came in with wash water and my breakfast.

  “Your husband says that he would like to show you the cathedral in the city, before he takes you home.”

  Her accent was thick, not the court French I was used to, but I managed to understand her. “Give my husband my thanks. I will not be long.”

  The door closed behind her after she had taken one long look at my newly soiled sheets. My reputation had preceded me, even in this place, for her eyes widened before she went away.

  “Let her spread that tale,” Marie Helene said. “Let them make songs about that.”

  I looked at those sheets, another lie that my life was built on. Then I turned away. Marie Helene already had buttered bread for us, and a slice of pear rested on the tip of her knife.

  We rode in a litter into the city of Rouen. I had little use for cities outside of Paris, but the town was built all of stone, close to the riverside. I kept the curtains of my litter closed until we stopped in front of the cathedral. To my eyes, it could not compare to the churches of Paris, but even I could see that it was beautiful.

  I climbed from my litter without waiting for my husband’s man to hand me out. William was off his horse and at my side in a moment. His true strength shone clear from his eyes when he met my gaze without flinching.

  “My lady, I thought you might like to see the church before we journey home.”

  “Thank you, husband. That is kind.”

  Beyond the pain in my voice, he heard that I had agreed to go along with the farce of our marriage without complaint. I put my pain aside and kissed his cheek.

  I stepped into the church alone.

  The shrine to the Holy Mother shown with candles in its alcove, set back from the long aisle. I left the sunlit day behind me. I lit a candle for my daughter, as I did every day, and at every shrine for the Virgin I ever came to.

  I knelt before the Holy Mother and it seemed I felt the warmth of my daughter’s presence with me as I prayed. I lay my pain before Her, and my loss of Jean Pierre, and the futility of my marriage.

  The longer I knelt there, the more I began to feel that I was not alone. Indeed, it was not just the memory of my daughter who had come to comfort me. I heard footsteps behind me, the slow and thoughtful tread I remembered well.

  As I crossed myself, his voice spoke to me as from a dream half-forgotten. It was as if my thoughts had conjured him, as if my prayers had made him rise from the very stones of that old church.

  “You still pray for her,” he said.

  “Every day.”

  I rose to my feet and turned to face him. Though it had been almost twenty years since I had seen him, he still looked the same to me. His hair glinted red where the sunlight touched it from the windows high above our heads. His eyes were as blue as they once had been, and their fathoms as deep, too deep for me to see my way to the bottom of his thoughts. He held himself as he always had, controlled and kingly. He had been born to be a king, as the rest of his brothers had not.

  “Richard,” I said. “You are welcome to this place.”

  I was well rewarded for my audacity, for he smiled at me. Though he was forty now, his smile was as sweet as it had been the day we met, when I was a girl of fourteen. After all the time that had passed, I wished he reserved that smile just for me.

  “I am glad to see you, Alais. Your brother mentioned that you were traveling through Rouen. I had hoped to see you before I went away.”

  We had both been raised to control our emotions, and their expression. But the warmth of his eyes held a shadow of his old love for me. That sweet warmth brought me comfort, though I knew we would never speak of it.

  “You are for the Levant and Jerusalem,” I said.

  “God willing. Jerusalem will have to be won.”

  “If it can be done, you will do it.”

  I spoke with faith, but I spoke the simple truth. He frowned at first, thinking perhaps that I flattered him, as many had done all his life, and as even more did now that he was king.

  I simply stood and looked at him, memorizing his face, though his was a face I would never forget, even on my death bed. Something of those we love remains with us after they are gone. So it has always been for me.

  Richard seemed to see something of my love for him in my eyes. He smiled at me, his frown melting away as if it had never been. “You forgive me then.”

  “For what, Richard?”

  “For dismissing you before the whole of Europe, Alais. Surely even locked away in your nunnery, you heard of that.”

  I looked to see if he was mocking me, but he stood sober, his smile gone. I reached out to touch him but stopped myself. My gloved hand hovered between us until I thought Richard might reach out and take it in his own. He did not. Finally, I lowered my hand to my side. “There is nothing to forgive.”

  “It was policy, Alais. I would never--”

  “You would never freely choose to shame me before the whole of Europe, no matter what I’ve done. Richard, the pain between us is past, buried long ago. I have made my peace with it. Please do not think on it again, not for my sake.”

  Tears had come into his eyes. He could not speak, so I took it on myself to speak for him.

  “It is good to see you again, Richard. I hope God guides your steps in the Holy Land.”

  “And my sword,” he said, trying to regain control of his features. I watched his battle with himself and, as always, he won. Henry never had. Though Richard would not make as good a king as his father, he was a better man.

  “God guide you in all things.” I raised my hand, this time in blessing. Tears rose in my own eyes.

  He saw them, and they were his undoing. Richard turned away from me. I saw him hesitate before he went. He had to fight himself again to keep from touching me. I felt his pain from where I stood, and I wished I could take it on myself and shield him. He was bound for Cyprus before he went to the Levant. There he would meet the princess from Navarre whom he had chosen to marry. Always, policy ruled the life of a king.

  He walked away from me, then stopped, framed in the wide doorway of the church. Eleanor stepped into the light from beyond the door. I watched as she took his hand. Richard seemed to take comfort from her touch. She could help him as I could not. He turned then and looked back at me. I hoped he could see my face in the gathering gloom, that he was not alone in his pain, that I loved him too.

  Richard left me then for the last time, stepping out into the bright sunshine of that spring day. Eleanor stood in his place for a long while, but she did not smile at me in triumph. Even from tha
t distance, I saw that she was full of sorrow and of the knowledge of all that had been lost between us. Perhaps the presence of her son’s living pain touched her as it always had, as my pain did not.

  Eleanor raised her hand to me. It was the last time I ever saw her. Her white hair had begun to come loose from her hood, and the sunlight struck it, so that it shone like electrum in the shadow of the doorway. We stood for a long moment, simply looking at one another before she walked away.

  I felt her going as keenly as I did her son’s. The silence of the church folded around me, as final as the grave my daughter lay in. I stood in the gloom of that church, the candle I had lit for my daughter flickering on the altar beside me.

  My husband was at my elbow. He stepped up in silence. I had not even heard him come into the church. I did not turn to him but stared past the doorway, to the sunlight that waited beyond. I wondered how long I would have to stand there before I could be certain that Eleanor and Richard had gone.

  William stood quiet beside me. I thought for a moment that he would not speak, that he would respect my sorrow as I had respected his pain the night before.

  “You love him,” he said.

  I did not seek to shield him as I might have done. He had not asked about Jean Pierre, and I knew he never would. But to love a prince was a different thing, and I had loved Richard longer than this boy had been alive. I could lie about many things in the name of duty, but I would not lie about this.

  “I will always love him.” My words hung between us, cradled by the silence that followed.

  No monks came to tend the altars, no priests came to hear confessions. No one entered the cathedral from the front door. We stood alone. For the first time while in a church, I could not feel the presence of God. In that moment of inner darkness, my husband reached out and took my hand.

  “I loved once,” he said simply.