I raised my eyes and met his gaze, unblinking. “Yes.”
He sighed and rose from his chair, his wine and breakfast forgotten. He paced the room, but it was small and confined him, so that he soon stopped again. I had the impression of a beast in a menagerie, some great mountain cat that had been caged and now wanted only to be free. Nothing of this desire for escape was reflected in his voice when he spoke, for my father had had the training of him. He knew his duty, as I did.
“You know that he has married that Spaniard? And surely you have heard, that when he was in the Levant, he took a Muslim whore?”
“I have heard.”
This infidel woman was only whispered of – as an aberration even stranger than Richard’s rumored taste for young men. I had heard this rumor and let it pass from my mind as quickly, like water running out of a broken jar. For as always, anything Richard did was nothing to me compared to the love that lay between us. I would carry that love with me to my grave and beyond, past the gates of Paradise.
“And still you plead for him. Sister, you are too good for this world.”
I frowned, for I thought that he mocked me. I saw almost immediately that he did not, that he looked at me with a calm, unwavering stare. After a long, considered glance, he looked away. Goodness was a commodity worth nothing.
“We are all sinners before God, brother.”
Phillipe waved away my talk of religion with one hand. “Whatever may or may not be true about the state of Richard’s soul, he is too dangerous to let live. And yet we cannot kill him outright, for he is an anointed king. I think our solution is a rather elegant one.”
He walked to the room’s only window, a small slit that let in little light. He stood, looking beyond it to the courtyard below. Phillipe spoke to me as if in a dream. “Richard has his eyes set on France. He could not conquer Jerusalem. If he is released, he will come here. He will try to conquer us.”
“He will not, Phillipe. He loves you.”
My voice seemed to reach him, for he blinked, drawing himself back into the room, back from whatever road his mind had taken. He turned to me then, and I saw the bitterness in his face. He did not try to mask it. For the first time I saw how deep it ran, and how much he once had loved Richard.
Phillipe’s face was hard when he answered me, his eyes shadowed, and not just by the indoor gloom. “Whatever love there was between us was spent and lost, long ago.”
We stood together in silence. There was no comfort for such a loss, and I offered none.
“If Richard comes back, he will come with an army. He may even turn his eye on your corner of the world, sister. He would destroy your peace. Surely you do not want that.”
“He would not make war on us. Our house is bound to his, and his to ours.”
“He would, and he will. That is why I pay Leopold to keep him where he is, where no harm can come to him, or to us.”
When my brother openly admitted the truth, I saw that all my words had been in vain, so much air to warm the space between us. I wished for my father at that moment as I set the thought of Richard aside and reached for my brother’s hand. “I love you, Phillipe. You serve and sacrifice for us all. I am grateful.”
Tears came into his eyes, as hard as he was, as weary. He said nothing but raised my hand to his lips and held it there for one long moment. When he spoke, his tears were gone, and his voice was even, as if his emotion had never been. But still, he held my hand.
“And will you leave us, sister? Do the pleasures of the country call you quickly away?”
“I am meant for a quiet life. I will return to my husband before the sun has set.”
Phillipe drew his hand from mine. “I will send you with an escort and with ladies to attend you. You must think of my state, sister, if not your own. A princess of France cannot gad about the countryside with six men-at-arms and no retainers.”
I knew his censure for what it was, care for my wellbeing that he could voice no other way. He was a hard man, and sometimes a cruel one, but I saw then for the first time that he loved me.
“I must be about the business of the kingdom, Alais. I have no more time to devote to talk of your lovers and their whereabouts.”
He moved to leave me. I could hear his courtiers gathering outside the door.
I stepped toward him and kissed him quickly, before he could get away. “Come to us at Easter, brother.”
He let me kiss him and did not pull back. “My time is not my own, sister, as you well know. But I will be there, if I can.”
Only then did I think of William and of how it would hurt him to see my brother again. But I looked to my brother and his loneliness. There is nothing like a crown to keep a man from those who love him. I had seen it in Henry and in my father, too.
Phillipe left me without another word. He did not look back. I stood a long time in his room, the cloying scent of sandalwood burning in the brazier.
I moved to leave. I meant to send word to my husband’s men-at-arms that we would leave with the tide. Only then did I see movement behind the screen in the corner.
A tall man emerged, with a weasel’s face and a sly smile. At first, I took him for an assassin and thanked God that my brother had already gone. I looked behind the screen and saw a chair hidden there. Whatever warmth my brother felt for me, he had known that this man was listening to every word.
I felt this betrayal like a sharp thrust of a dagger in my side. But the cut was not deep, for I had been betrayed before, and by those closer to me.
“So, princess, you come to ask for my brother’s freedom?”
When he stepped closer to me and into the light of the lamp, I saw that it was Richard’s brother, John. I remembered how this man had waylaid me in England in an effort to marry me before I could return to France, but all illusion of courtly love had been stripped away from him now. His face held nothing for me but contempt.
I stared at him as if he were a bug that would soon be crushed beneath the heel of my shoe. I thought to leave, but he placed himself between me and the door.
Though John sought to menace me, I knew him to be a weakling and a coward, so I was not afraid. I had been done more harm than he could conceive of by his betters.
He smiled at me, and I saw a little of Henry in the line of his jaw, and in the slant of his eyes, I saw traces of Eleanor. Of Richard, I saw nothing.
“Richard is better off where he is. Perhaps he has a fat German woman to keep him warm at night.” When this clumsy thrust did not touch me, he went on. “Or perhaps he has taken a young page to his bed. Your husband could tell you something of that, no doubt.”
I called on all the training of my childhood to keep my face impassive. Anger rose hot in me, and I took a deep breath of the incense-scented air. The room was too warm, and the air, too close.
I moved to walk past John, but again he blocked my path. This time he stood so close that I could smell the cloying perfume he wore under his gown. I did not gag but stepped back reflexively.
He smiled, thinking that I moved away out of fear, and not out of loathing. “You could always cast off your husband as my mother did. And take a new one.”
I took a shallow breath, wanting to reach for a handkerchief to cover my nose and mouth, but I no longer carried one.
John stepped forward, his eyes on mine. As I watched him, his gaze slipped lower, down my gown with its modest front drawn close over my breasts, past my waist to my thighs, where they were hidden beneath the silk of my skirt. I almost laughed to think that this man was rumored to be a womanizer. But then I thought of Richard and of how he had no heir. This man would be king, if Richard died with no son to succeed him.
I felt the pain of that, as if it were the death of my own son I had just heard of. As I stood there, it seemed I could hear the sound of our unborn son’s laughter. I could almost hear him on the stairs as he came into my solar and see his happy face shining as he brought me some boyish treat, a flower from the garden or a strip o
f leather from the tilting yard. This boy’s face was before me, the son I would never see, his father’s blue eyes shining, his father’s dark red hair around his shoulders like a lion’s mane.
I staggered under the weight of this pain, my hard-won impassivity shattered. Like the animal he was, John scented this, and caught my arm before I fell.
The stink of his perfume mingled with the scent of sandalwood in the brazier. I thought that he would kiss me in that moment of my greatest weakness, hungry to score another victory over me. But John seemed to remember who I was and who my father had been. He was my brother’s ally, but he had heard us speak. Perhaps we had seemed closer than we were, for once I gained my footing, he let me go.
John’s gaze met mine, all lust burned away. Only calculation remained in the light hazel of his eyes. “Remember what I offer you. You might put your husband aside and marry me.”
I saw that he thought to dazzle me, as if I had never had the throne of England offered me before. I remembered Henry in that moment and his strength. I seemed to feel him with me, his power flowing into me with my next breath. Henry had been cruel and had used me for his own amusement, pride and pleasure, but he had loved me. Henry loved me enough in the end to let me go.
I took strength from my memories, from the scent of apple wood burning on a September fire and the color of maple leaves just beginning to fall. It seemed I could feel Henry standing behind me, a wall against which I might lean, a wall against the machinations of his youngest son.
“Remember, princess. My offer stands. Richard will not live forever.” John turned and left me.
The scent of his perfume lingered in my eyes and on my skin. I found the chamber pot and retched into it. I had never been made sick by the mere presence of a man before. I could never again breathe in the scent of sandalwood without nausea.
I left my brother’s chamber, but my memories of Henry were still with me. I seemed to feel his arm under my hand as he led me down the stairs and back to my room. I entered my room and turned to look for him, to see if perhaps his shade had returned from Hell to lead me.
My fancy was put aside like so much smoke, for there was no one. Only myself, alone in an empty room. I rang for my brother’s women, that they might pack my things. I was going home.
15
Home
I did not see Jean Pierre again until the royal barge was halfway to Rouen. The sun was beginning to set over the Seine, dazzling my eyes. The water slid away beneath the polished wood of my brother’s boat. The silver cast of the sun along the river reminded me that there is beauty in the world.
I was downcast on leaving Paris, as I always was. The interview with my brother and the confrontation with John had only made it worse. As I turned my thoughts toward my husband’s house, I found that though I missed Paris and always would, I would never miss the court. For better or for worse, I was content in the country, where politics could do me no more harm.
The fresh air of the river raised my spirits. I leaned back against the cushions of my brother’s shaded bench, listening to the stamp of the horses behind me.
When coming to Paris alone, I had hired a barge from Rouen and had flown my husband’s standard. Now I rode in the royal barge and my husband’s coat of arms flew proud beneath the standard of the royal house of France.
I sighed, taking in the beauty of the countryside around me, letting go the horror of my time at court. The taste of bile was still in my mouth from my interview with John, so I called for wine. It was Jean Pierre who brought it to me.
I knew in that moment that my brother had sent him in my train, a parting gift and, perhaps, an apology. The only apology I was ever likely to receive from the king. Perhaps Phillipe truly would join us for Easter, if he was generous enough to send the man that I loved away with me.
I looked up at Jean Pierre, my eyes dazzled by the sunlight, until he sat beside me, the wineskin in his hand.
“Shall I pour you a glass, my lady?”
I smiled at his boldness and his ease with me. No one else seemed to see me as I was and not a reflection of my father or my brother. I took the wineskin from him and tipped it back, drinking deep.
Handing it back to him, I caught his eye. Jean Pierre could have looked no more surprised if I had leaned over the side of the barge and lapped water from the river. I started laughing then, a low belly laugh that left me gasping. It had been many years since I had laughed like that. Whatever else might lie between us, he had given me that.
He smiled but did not laugh himself. He looked at me sideways, as if I were a woman he had never seen before, but one he liked the look of. I leaned back against the cushions of my brother’s barge and let the pain of leaving Paris slip away with the outgoing tide.
I had done what I could, as little as that was. Richard was a man among men and would have to fend for himself. I put all thoughts of Richard aside, along with those of my brother and the hideous John. I turned my eyes to the sunset and to the cathedral of Rouen, where it gleamed in the fading light.
“They are to build a new church,” Jean Pierre said, trying to cover his surprise at my ease with his wineskin and my sudden laughter.
I had drunk straight from such a skin only once before, long ago, walking with Henry under the apple trees of his hunting lodge.
I tipped Jean Pierre’s wineskin back again. The taste of the warm red wine on my lips, combined with the warmth of the sun on my skin made me remember the part of myself that I had rediscovered in Gerald’s arms. I realized that I would not return to my old ways of the nunnery within my husband’s house. I would forge a new way, this time on my own. I would take Jean Pierre as a lover, if he was willing.
Something in my brother’s eyes, as well as the dark loneliness of his court, reminded me that life was fleeting. As I looked at Jean Pierre beside me, sweet desire rose in me at the sight of his strong shoulders encased in the leather of his cuirass. I also felt my love for him rise in me like a blessing. The sin of living with joy, if sin it was, was something I would learn to accept.
As he raised the wineskin to his lips, Jean Pierre caught my eye on him. He faltered, blinking, as if struck by a bright light.
“I would have you take supper with me, if you are willing.”
He stared at me, and at first, I thought he was going to dismiss my offer out of hand. I was married still. Perhaps his own sense of honor gave him pause. But his eyes met mine and held them. He drank, lowering the wineskin to the bench between us. I felt the weight of the gaze of my brother’s men on us and knew it would not be worth his life for him to touch me there, under the open sky.
So, I smiled instead, so that he would not misunderstand me.
He swallowed hard, the wineskin forgotten, though he still held it in his hand. “It would be my honor, my lady.”
I laughed for joy; it was the second time he had made me laugh that hour. He smiled a little, but I could see that it cost him something, that inadvertently I had broken a solemn moment between us.
I hid my hand beneath the silk of my skirt. The fashion at court was to wear skirts so long and wide that the skirt alone held material enough for one of the dresses I had worn at the convent. I slid my hand across the cushion I sat on, under the soft smoothness of my silk gown, until my hand caressed his thigh where the high boots met the hem of his tunic.
He stopped breathing, and I drew my hand away. He was careful to keep his face averted from me, looking out over the water and the town before us. I saw the line of his jaw, and how the muscles tightened there as if he wished to speak.
“I will ask for venison and mulled wine,” I said.
Jean Pierre did not respond, nor did he look at me, and I wondered if I had been too bold, too much like a harlot. We had docked by that time, and the gang plank was down. I saw the monks standing in a row like birds, bobbing in their black gowns, ready to greet me. I rose and took one last look at Jean Pierre. He met my eyes now that none of the other men could see his face. He
sent me a look of such pure longing that it made my heart sing.
“And fruit,” he said. “Ask for fruit.”
With a smile, I did not speak again but simply walked away.
The brothers made me welcome, treating me as if I were a queen indeed, and not a worn-out princess sold in marriage to a man half my age. They bowed me into the abbot’s room, which had been cleared for me. The rushes on the floor were fresh and smelled sweetly of thyme and rosemary. The window opened over the cloister walk below, and there was a soft breeze from the river. I sighed, looking down over the shadowed arcade where jasmine grew.
The monks bowed themselves out of the room after I told them that I would not take my evening meal with the abbot, and that the table in my room need be set for two.
I waited for Jean Pierre after the meal was served. There was no venison, but some conies had been caught the day before, and they made a savory stew. The fruit was fresh and plentiful, pears just picked from the trees in the cloister garden.
Jean Pierre did not keep me waiting long, but he apologized as soon as he came in. I saw that he had bathed and wore fresh linen and a tunic of spun silk. The tunic was wrinkled from his saddlebag, but I knew it was the best he had with him and that he sought to do me honor.
I rose when he came in and took his hand when he bowed to me. I smiled, gesturing to a chair the monks had set on the other side of the small table. He would not sit, however, until I was in my chair again, a glass of wine poured and in my hand.
I thought for a moment that he had changed his mind, that seeing me again after so long in my brother’s house had made him think of me as a princess indeed. I feared that he would not so much as touch the sleeve of my gown, but would serve me at table, as if he were a page in my brother’s court. This fear soon left me, for he poured a glass of wine for himself and sat down across from me, though he kept to the edge of his chair.
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