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

by Christy English

  This would make Jean Pierre frown, and I would have to kiss him when we were alone to make up for my husband’s words. In spite of the painful position I put him in, my lover never reproved me, neither in word nor in deed, all the time that I knew him.

  We spent many afternoons basking in the sunlight that autumn, listening as the river wound past on its slow way to the sea. We took in the scent of the fresh mown grass and barley, for it was harvest time, and the farmers were in the fields, bringing in the grain.

  Those afternoons by the river were engraved on my heart, so that, even now that I am an old woman, I can remember every detail of that time, the sunlight on the water, the deep green of the grass where it met the blue of the sky, the purple irises trailing in my daughter’s hair.

  Sometimes at night when I cannot sleep, and prayer is far from me, I think back on that time, and of those I loved seated around me. My heart opens up, and I find that I can pray again. For the Hand of the Holy Mother is always near, beckoning me. But I must bring my mind to trust in God’s goodness, back to the certainty of my childhood. From that place in my heart, I can reach for Her Hand.

  My unconventional family stayed together all through that winter, taking in the Yule log and Christ’s Mass, standing under the stars as we walked to church at midnight. Both my husband and my lover watched my belly grow, and, in late spring, they both came into my rooms when I was delivered of my son.

  “We will name him Jean,” my husband said.

  I watched as Jean Pierre swallowed this. I thought perhaps it rankled for another man to name his first child. But then I saw that he fought the urge to weep. By naming my son for him, my husband had touched him, as even my love for him could not.

  I did not speak but took my husband’s hand. Only later, when Jean Pierre had gone to order a mass said in my son’s honor, did I turn to William and kiss his cheek. “Thank you, husband.”

  His hand was soft on my hair. I could almost not feel the warmth of his palm, so lightly did he touch me. His eyes were as blue as the eyes of my child. “You are welcome, wife.”

  Jean Pierre came back then, with Marie Helene and the wet nurse in tow. William stepped away from me, giving up his place to another.

  My son thrived. Marie was suspicious of him at first, but when Marie Helene and I redoubled our efforts to shower love on her, she decided that she would take her little brother under her wing. It was sweet to watch them sit together before the fire in the nursery and then play in the tall grasses by the river as spring came on.

  Jean was a favorite with my husband as well, who, when Jean Pierre was away in Paris, would take the boy up before him on his horse, riding with him everywhere, whether hunting or simply riding through the fields. Marie Helene hated this, for she feared for his safety, but I knew my husband would care for Jean as if he were his own.

  I also knew that the men of my family were raised to danger and warfare. The sooner my son took up this mantel, the longer he might live. I prayed that he would make a good lord one day, combining the goodness of my father with the strength of my brother.

  Phillipe came to us in the country when my son was christened. He stood as godfather to this child too, not wanting to leave a daughter to outdo a son in honor. He stood in the front of the church with my husband and myself, and for the first time Jean Pierre seemed grateful to give place to William. He had no affection for my brother, even if he was king.

  Phillipe stayed only for the day, bringing a great entourage with him, all of whom looked down their noses at us, especially at me, laughing behind their hands at my disgrace, and at how far pious Louis’ daughter had fallen.

  None of these people were foolish enough to say anything openly in front of my husband or my lover, but their amused pleasure followed me everywhere that day. Though I was not ashamed of my life or my choices, I was happy when they left.

  So, my strange family went on its way, with everyone getting along well, Jean Pierre and I being as discreet as we could. My husband became so discreet with his own lovers after the birth of my son, that I was never sure when he took one at all. The children were happy, surrounded by so much love, and I began to hope that we might live on like this always.

  And perhaps we would have, if the rest of the world had left us in peace. If we had been a country family in truth with no ties to the court, if I had not been born a princess, if my lover had not been born a count, and my husband had not been the last survivor of one of the oldest families of France. Perhaps things would have been different. But I learned as a child that fate is not something that can be run from. It must be faced, like loss, and sorrow, and the inevitability of death.

  Part III

  Countess of Ponthieu

  18

  Paris

  More than a year passed as I lived with both my lover and my husband and watched my children thrive. The day I learned that I would return to Paris was a brilliant day in high summer. I was sitting in the garden with my son. It was one of those rare times when both his nurse and Marie Helene were busy elsewhere, and I could sit with my son alone.

  Jean had learned to walk, and now was toddling between a bench and the nearest tree, trampling whatever plants came under his felt-clad feet. At first, I scolded him, before I realized that he was too young to understand me, and that whatever authority I might have had was long since replaced by Marie Helene and her gentle voice and smile.

  Jean laughed, his childish giggles piercing the air. I caught him up in my arms to save a clutch of lavender that had not yet come to bloom. I pressed my lips to his neck, and he shrieked, wriggling not to get away, but to come closer to me.

  Jean Pierre found us like that, both his love and his son laughing. He had been called away on his own family’s business and had just returned from Paris that day. He never stopped in the monastery since we first had been there, though William had smoothed things over with the abbot and told him often that Jean was welcome.

  He could not look the old abbot in the face and chose instead to take his chances at inns along the roadside, where there were always lice and fleas. I always had to comb him clean after he had been to one of those places, something he seemed to enjoy. Once, I assured him that I would give him all the attention he could desire if he would only stay away from those inns. After that, he found a hayloft to sleep in, or else he slept on the ground.

  That day he came to me straight from the stable. He was always one to put his horse away, brushing the stallion down himself, never resting until the currying and the oats were seen to. So, he came to me covered in the dirt of the road, a little wisp of hay still stuck in his hair.

  He took our son from me and kissed him while I reached up and drew the strand of hay from his golden hair. I smoothed his hair into place, so that it fell in a curtain to his shoulders. He smiled and kissed me, with our son between us.

  We were rarely all three alone, and I drank in the moment as I did the sunshine and the birdsong. The scent of crushed thyme reached us from beneath the tree where Jean had stepped on it. Jean Pierre and I stood close, taking in its fragrance, one more stolen moment.

  “My love, there is news from court.”

  I leaned against him, letting my forehead rest against his heart. He shifted our son to his other arm and held me close. I took in his scent, leather, and horse, and the grass he had slept in. I sighed before I spoke. “What news, love?”

  Little Jean looked between us, his laughter forgotten. I smiled at him so that he would not be afraid, and his father kissed his hair. My son’s hair was as fair as his father’s, but it was light blond and downy, and stood out from his head like a halo.

  Jean settled into his father’s arms, happy to be there, quiet for the first time since he had been left with me that morning.

  “Your brother the king has a son.”

  I felt a lump rise in my throat, the memory of my childhood coming back to me. All the years my father and I spent on our knees, praying for a son to preserve the safety
of France. The years we waited for my brother to be born, and then, once Phillippe Auguste came to us, the years we prayed for his safety and his health. The memory of those years came upon me like a flood tide, and I stood in their wake, not moving, leaning against my lover’s breast.

  “God be praised,” I said.

  Though I was no longer worthy, though I had left my honor and my father’s honor in the dust long ago, I stepped away from my lover in that sunlit garden and knelt before God, giving thanks I no longer had any right to offer.

  In that moment, all the years I had spent in the service of France came back to me. I put aside my state of sin and pushed from my mind my fall from grace. I knelt among the trampled flowers and gave thanks to God that He had seen fit to preserve the kingdom for one more generation.

  I was still praying when my husband found us standing in his kitchen garden, flowers and thyme lying where they had been crushed under my son’s feet.

  William came and stood beside me. He offered his hand to help me rise. “I told you, wife, you kneel to no one.”

  “I kneel to God,” I said, but I stood as he bid me.

  “Well, I suppose that is all right.” William’s sensual lips quirked in a smile, and I found myself caught by the blue of his eyes.

  Jean Pierre came to my side, and I drew my eyes back to the man I loved and kissed my son’s cheek.

  “So, we are for Paris, and a royal christening,” William said.

  I turned my eyes to Jean Pierre, still holding our little boy. Jean saw William and crowed, holding out his arms so that my husband might take him.

  Without a look at either of us, William swept my son into his arms, raining kisses on his face and neck until he squealed.

  “I can only hope that the king’s son is as well-loved as mine is,” I said without thinking.

  “Amen,” William said. He was not a religious man, then or ever, but I saw that he did not mock me.

  Jean Pierre said nothing but stood on my other side, listening in silence as our son called another man by the name of father.

  Late that night, Jean Pierre and I were alone in my room. He did not move to touch me, and I knew that seeing our son with William had hurt him. I went to him and kissed him, my shift trailing like a cloud of white around me. The linen had been well bleached and the delicate embroidery at the hem, neck and cuffs was Marie Helene’s work. I had long since given up the running of my household to her and to Maisie.

  I found that I was more suited to sitting in a garden, thinking of God and my failings, than I was to anything else. I had been raised to sacrifice my life for the good of France, and that sacrifice had already been made. I would have been better suited to live out the years of my life in a convent, free from the temptation to sin, but as I looked at Jean Pierre in the firelight, I did not regret our time together. I knew that I would love him all my life, even when choosing a wife took him far from me.

  I stood beside our bed, thinking these things, my hand in his soft hair, when a scratching at the door beyond the antechamber made me pause. The wash water had come hours before and the fire had been stoked in the brazier, so I did not know who waited for me in the hallway.

  Jean Pierre started at the sound but relaxed under my hand.

  “I will go see who it is,” I said. “Perhaps it is the maid coming to put out the fire.”

  For it was a warm night, even for late August. We would be on the road early the next morning. My brother wanted his son christened quickly, in case he might sicken and die, as so many children did. But I knew in my heart that this son would live for the good of France.

  Jean Pierre looked up at me, his face half hidden in shadow by the light of the fire. We both knew that it was not the maid waiting behind the door.

  I stepped into the antechamber, the tiny room that held nothing but trunks and an old chair. The room was never used, except as a small passage between my rooms and the hallway beyond. I did not draw the door closed behind me as I stepped into the anteroom, and I knew that Jean Pierre listened for every sound.

  I opened the door to my husband.

  “Is he asleep?” William asked me, closing the door behind him.

  “No.”

  The anteroom was small, and we stood close, for I did not want to take him back into the bedroom with me. My husband had grown taller now that he had reached his twenty-second year. Not for the first time I felt caught between him and my lover, as grain is caught between the millstones.

  My husband smelled of the wine he had drunk at dinner and of the night air. I could tell he had been out walking the ramparts, the place he went when he needed to be alone to think his thoughts in peace.

  He kept his voice low when he spoke, and I felt the pain I always did when he was alone with me. I reminded myself not to be a fool, that I had a man who loved me just beyond the next door, that my husband loved me as well as he could, and that I must be content with that.

  But as I met his eyes by candlelight, my breath came short as it had soon after I met him, when we stood for the first time beside our marriage bed. The blue of his eyes touched me as no one’s ever had. I knew this was probably because, as with so many things in life, I could not have him.

  “I fear to see your brother,” he said.

  I looked into his face, knowing there was no comfort to offer the pain of lost love. I too had borne it, and nothing came to cure it, not even time. “I am sorry, husband. I am sure it pains him as well.”

  “I doubt that, wife. I doubt if he even remembers my name.”

  He smiled at me, his quirky smile that seemed to take in the world with a wink, as if the world was not a serious place, the dark place of duty and loss that I had always known it to be. William’s smile seemed to mock his own pain even as he stood there. I knew him well enough by then to see beyond it to the living pain beneath. I did not speak of what I saw but pretended along with him that his smile spoke all he had to say.

  I took his hand in mine. It was strange to feel his naked skin next to mine, for we rarely touched without gloves between us. His calluses warmed me where my hand rested in his palm. I did not think of myself as small, except when he stood by me.

  “Well, I am for bed, wife. I came only to tell you that we leave at first light.”

  I knew this already, for Jean Pierre had told me. I looked into my husband’s eyes, but I could no longer see past the gleam of laughter that he often imposed between us. The window to his soul was shut, the shutters drawn tight, as against a heavy wind. I had no way of knowing if he had gotten the comfort he sought when he came to me.

  “Good night then, husband.”

  He said nothing, but kissed me, his lips warm and dry on mine. His kiss was featherlight, as it often was in my dreams, too fleeting to be substantial.

  He left me, and I closed the door behind him. I stood for a moment with the candle in my hand. I turned to go back to my lover and blew the candle out.

  We entered Paris to a fanfare of trumpets. Phillipe had stationed musicians along the top of the walls so as we passed through the gates of the city, we were greeted with music. I waved from my barge and William stood behind me, also waving to the people. They threw flowers, some of which landed at my feet, others which fell into the river and floated in our wake, bits of color on the dark brown water.

  Men-at-arms stood at the water gate of the palace, their lances lowered in salute. My brother waited for us on the steps, and the people cheered to see him walk into the sunshine.

  The sun shone bright against his dark head and as I watched, my husband knelt. William’s fair head bent in supplication, and Phillipe leaned down to help him to his feet, a show of favor rarely accorded anyone.

  As I watched my brother and my husband meet for the first time since our wedding, I felt no pain. I could see clearly that they loved each other truly, even now, after so much time had passed. I thanked the Holy Mother that my husband found love in my brother’s eyes, even though he could not keep him.
/>   I felt the touch of Her Hand on me, as I had not in many months, and the warm breeze from the river felt like Her blessing. I bent my head in acceptance, in time to see Jean Pierre step beside me. In front of all the world, he reached out and took my hand. I looked up and saw the sunlight shining on his fair hair, his blue eyes resting on me, nothing but love in his gaze. He kissed me, and the people cheered. I think from that distance they believed he was my husband.

  Standing there by the river Seine as it wound its way to the sea, I felt as if my life was complete. My daughter stood behind us, held in check by Marie Helene. The wet nurse carried Jean, keeping him from running wild as he was wont to do, now that he was big enough. My husband stood before me, content only to look on my brother. And Jean Pierre stood beside me.

  I took in the whole of my life in that instant. I looked down the corridor of time and saw the years following one upon another, my husband content with his life, my children growing in good health, and my love beside me.

  It seems to me now that such seeming certainty comes only before the greatest loss. But that day, I was free of pain, standing in the sunlight with the man I loved, the cheers of the people behind us.

  Phillipe’s son was a beautiful baby despite the enmity between his mother and father. I saw no evidence of their well-known rivalry as I watched the king and queen from where I stood in the crowded church. They behaved as polite strangers. Many wondered when they had found the inclination to make the heir to the throne, for they had no interest in speaking or even looking at each other.

  I knew better than anyone how politic royal marriages were. Richard and I would have been lucky. Very few were blessed as we might have been. I turned my thoughts from Richard and took my lover’s hand.

  With the christening over, a royal banquet was held in the king’s great hall. Hundreds of people filled the place, but we were honored to sit above them at my brother’s high table.