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

by Christy English

  He sat first, saying nothing, and everyone followed suit. I sat beside him and saw to it that his wine was well watered, for I knew he would be lightheaded. Even as I watched him, he ate little, but made sure to take something from every course, for appearance’s sake. The court watched him as they would an invalid, or one who had taken leave of his wits.

  I realized that was what they had thought of him, mourning for a child who was not his own. At last, they turned away, satisfied that he was well, or at least well enough to remain their liege lord. I watched the court turn from him and back to their own affairs, the drama over, at least for that day. There were some who kept their eyes on him, even as the minstrels came out and the dancing began. I thought that he would stay seated by me, as befitted a man in mourning. But he rose to his feet with the first stately dance and offered his hand to me.

  I took it, though I felt for one horrible moment as if we were dancing on my son’s grave. I looked into his eyes and saw my pain mirrored there as I laid my hand over his.

  As he led me into the dance, the others parted before us, giving us pride of place. I felt as if we danced alone on a stage as we moved slowly through the steps. Marie Helene saw us begin, the music rising, and she turned her face away. Marie was not in the hall, and I was grateful that she was not there to see it.

  I glanced at the courtiers who watched us dance and saw that they admired my husband’s strength. They all knew what the death of my son had cost him, and to see him stand and dance before all reminded them that he was a man to be reckoned with.

  It also reminded me.

  The dance ended, and my husband sat down. He did not fall into his chair, but seated me first, as courtesy dictated, as if I were his wife in truth and not only in name. He sat and watched the rest of the dancing until the minstrels began to tire, and the music began to wind down.

  He stood then, and the rest of the company stood as well, and bowed to him as he left the chamber. Marie Helene alone did not, and I saw the pain in her face that we had danced, my son in the grave only two weeks.

  I could feel her pain as a slap even across that wide space, but I knew my place. My husband was in worse pain than she was, and it was with him that I left the hall, his hand still under mine.

  I took him to his rooms and left him with his squire, putting him into the young man’s good care. As I watched them together, I wondered if they had ever been lovers, but as the boy began to help my husband with his gown, I did not see evidence of a lingering touch or awkward hesitations. All seemed businesslike and calm, as if the boy only wanted to offer my husband quiet in his time of grief.

  The meal in the hall had cost William something. Though he had eaten a little, he was still gaunt and pale, his eyes shining large in his face.

  I went to him without thinking as he stood in his leggings and shirt, and I kissed him. “I will come back and sit with you as soon as I have seen to Marie.”

  He seemed surprised, but he did not draw back from my lips when they touched his cheek. He said nothing, which I took for assent. His squire bowed to me and closed the door behind me as I left.

  Marie Helene was sitting by Marie’s bed, as if without her vigilance, some menace might carry her off in the night.

  I kissed my daughter, and she stirred but did not wake. She seemed to feel something of my presence, though, for she smiled in her sleep and touched my hand.

  Marie Helene sat beside her in the old nurse’s straight-back chair. She would not meet my eyes.

  “You blame me,” I said. “You blame me for Jean’s death.”

  “No,” she answered immediately, but her eyes were still dark as they met mine.

  “Then you blame me for dancing.”

  Her gaze did not waver from mine when she spoke. “Yes.”

  I drew another chair close to hers. Our voices were pitched low, so as not to wake Marie, or Jean’s old nurse who slept in the corner. The poor woman could not stand to be alone, and Marie Helene had graciously taken her into my daughter’s household. The woman’s own children were years dead, and she had nowhere else to go.

  I sat close to Marie Helene but did not touch her. I could feel her anger and her pain from where I sat, as one might feel heat from a fire. She had turned her face away from me to watch over my child.

  “I am sorry to pain you,” I said. “We danced not for joy, but from necessity.”

  Marie Helene still did not meet my eyes, but I knew that she was listening.

  “If William had not shown his men that he is still alive, and still strong, there would have been hell to pay, if not now, then soon. You were with me in Henry’s court. You know what men are.”

  When I spoke of our shared past, so long ago, something seemed to call to her even in her grief. She met my eyes. Something of our old bond spoke to her, and the anger in her face faded to sorrow.

  I took her hand then and held it. She did not speak, but I felt her relax in her chair. I knew that soon she would be weeping, for the loss of Jean had touched her deeply, reminding her of her own lost children. I loved my children, but Marie Helene had been their true mother. She had had the raising of them. Jean had been the smallest and had still needed her as Marie no longer did.

  I knew that Marie Helene could feel my children slipping away from her, one into death and the other into adulthood. In a few years Marie would be old enough to marry, though I would see to it that she would not leave us until she was strong enough to stand for herself, if she left at all. For she was William’s heir, now that Jean was dead. Perhaps a match could be made with a landless man who might come and live with us.

  I turned my thoughts from these practicalities, for I still had to change my gown and go to my husband, to sit with him to stave off the darkness, as he had once sat with me. My own grief was standing by, waiting for a time when I might acknowledge it. I had seen my son buried and knew he was safe in the arms of the Holy Mother, as both of my lost children were. But this knowledge had begun to fade under the weight of my sorrow. I knew that my own grief would leave me in peace until my living loved ones were cared for, but my reprieve would not be long.

  Marie Helene seemed to sense this pain in me. Her eyes had softened with the weight of our shared grief, and she leaned over and kissed me, as she had not done in many years, as she once would have done when I was young and alone in Henry’s court, with only her to comfort me.

  “I am sorry, Alais. I forget that your grief must tear at you. I forget all in the face of my own pain.”

  I kissed her and set my cheek against hers, allowing myself to lean on someone for the first time since my son had died. “Thank you.” I rose and left her, for I still had to take off my silk and don a gown of plain linen, so that I could sit with my husband and keep him from despair.

  I turned at the door and looked back, only to see Marie Helene kneel at my daughter’s bed as if it were a prie dieu, and my daughter the Holy Grail. I left her to her prayers, hoping that God and the Holy Mother might hear her, for there was no doubt in my mind that she prayed for all my children, both the living and the dead, that they might be kept safe and happy, whether here with us or with God beyond the shadowed valley we lived in.

  I dressed in my own rooms quickly but with deliberate care. I knew that I would get no sleep that night, and I wanted to be comfortable. My long hair fell in curls around my shoulder. A few strands were shot with silver, but they blended well with the dark chestnut of my hair. So, I was dressed in a simple blue linen gown and shift tied with blue ribbons when I went to my husband’s rooms. His servants had long since left, but the rush light was lit, and the door had been left ajar for me. I entered quietly, closing the door softly behind me.

  William sat at his table, not slumped as I had last found him, but leaning, his head thrown back, his face in shadow.

  “Husband, I have come to sit with you, if you will have me.”

  “You are welcome, wife.”

  I could not see his face, but it seemed he
watched me with careful scrutiny from where he sat, and it made me conscious of my body beneath the thin linen of my gown. I wondered at myself, that I could still feel this way in his presence, even after all these years, even when it was clear to me that he would never love me as I had once wanted him to, that we would never have the marriage I had once hoped to have.

  I sighed and drew a chair up to his table, so that I might face him across its scarred surface. This was where he drew up plans for the outbuildings when they needed changing, and where he planned future hunts for the king to enjoy during visits that never came. Phillippe had never slept under my husband’s roof since I had lived there. I wondered if William kept those plans, drawn on costly vellum, laid aside somewhere in a trunk, entertainments that he might draw out at a moment’s notice if my brother were ever to come to him.

  Once I was sitting, I could see my husband’s face more clearly, and I knew that any hope he had of my brother coming back to him had long since fled. Something of the pain of Jean’s death had burned away the last of his youth, so he sat beside me for the first time as a man in truth.

  I mourned for the loss of the last of his innocence, but such loss was one we all must bear. I reached out and took my husband’s hand where it lay on the table between us. I thought that it would lie limp in my own, but he grasped my hand tightly, as if I might otherwise turn away.

  “Do you ever get over it?” he asked me.

  As always, I knew what he meant without explanation. “No. I mourn her still.”

  He nodded, his hand still gripping mine. I thought that he would fall into silence then, and that we would sit and watch the fire in the brazier burn down. Though it was warm in his chambers for that late in the summer, he liked to keep a fire burning and the windows open. He, alone of all the people I knew, was not afraid of the supposed evils of the night air.

  “And Richard,” he said. “Do you still mourn him?”

  I was surprised by this question, for the thought of Richard had been buried between us long ago. I searched my memory, almost afraid to open that long-closed chest with all my lost loved ones tucked away. I opened it carefully, afraid that, like Pandora’s box, evils would rise to taunt me and destroy my peace.

  But when I looked into that old, forgotten place in my heart where Richard lived, I found no pain. Only a little sorrow, like a faded rose that held no perfume. I met my husband’s eyes unblinking. “No. I will always love him, but I do not mourn him anymore.”

  William nodded and sat still for a long time, his hand over mine, cradling it, as he had cradled it all those long nights when I was mourning Jean Pierre in silence, unable even to weep. He ran his fingertips lightly over the back of my hand, until I became conscious of the ridges of age that had begun to spring up there. It was on my hands that my true age showed.

  I moved to pull my hand away, to slip it onto my lap so that I would not have to look at it, but he would not let go. He met my eyes again, and I found that I could not look away.

  “And Jean Pierre?” he asked. “Do you still mourn him?”

  I blinked, for he had never uttered the name of my lover to me since the day he died. I cast my mind back to the horrible day by the tilting yard, when Jean Pierre’s life had bled out onto the stone floor of my brother’s keep. I thought of his face as he smiled in death, of his sweet lips whose last words had been of his love for me. I thought of how fortune had given him to me, how God had blessed me even in my sin.

  I thought of all these things, and I found that they no longer caused me pain. Perhaps it was the death of Jean that had done it, but now it was as if a great door had closed between me and the next world, and Jean Pierre was locked behind it.

  The door had closed, and I was on this side of it. He was lost to me, and there an end. I could only pray for him, and that I might be forgiven for the sin of loving him, that God might let me see him again when I crossed into Paradise.

  I was silent a long time, thinking these things, but William did not stir all that while. He did not speak or pull away from me, but kept his eyes always on my face, watching me, waiting for my answer as if it held some secret for him, some secret that he must possess.

  I wondered if his mind had become unsettled in his grief, that he could not leave off picking at old wounds. But as I looked at him in the dim light of that smoking lamp, I saw no evidence of madness in him. Even the horror of his grief had burned away. Jean’s death had become the burden that William would bear in silence for the rest of his life.

  For I had spoken truth: you never get over the death of a beloved child, be it one year or twenty since the child has gone from you. For him, it had only been two weeks since Jean was laid in the ground, but I saw already that his grief had taken on a weight and a solidity that it would keep. He shouldered the burden of it, as he shouldered everything else in his life, without flinching. He had long since learned, as I had done, to take what comes.

  I thought of Jean Pierre and the loss of him. I made certain of my answer. When I spoke, my voice was even, as I had been trained to keep it when I was younger and sent away to live out my life in an enemy court – a smooth voice that conveys nothing but what the hearer wishes to learn.

  “I love him,” I said. “But I no longer mourn him. I bless his memory, but he is gone. I have come to accept that.”

  Something in my husband’s face shifted when I spoke, like a current moving far down in the depths of the sea. Some strange heat seemed to cross behind his eyes, but I could not see it for what it was. I had no language for such a thing. There was no such thing as heat between us.

  He knelt at my feet then, his hand still clutched over mine. His motion surprised me, and I made to push back my chair. He held me still, and I did not turn away. Something in his eyes stopped me even as it frightened me.

  I wondered at first if this was a touch of madness inspired by grief, but I saw almost immediately that it was not. This was something new between us, something that was born even as he knelt before me, still clutching my hand.

  “My lady,” he said. “Alais.”

  I did not answer him but looked down into the blue of his eyes. His eyes were the color of the summer sky after a rain, pure and clear. It seemed for the first time that I could see beyond the closed doors of those eyes, that he had opened those doors to me, and let in the light.

  “I love you,” he said. “I thought that the time when we might have come together had passed away, cast off like refuse when I was too young and foolish to see what your love might mean. I thought to speak when Marie was born, but I did not, and when you turned to Jean Pierre of your own accord, I knew my time for speaking was lost. When he died, I thought to speak again, but your love for him was as strong as your grief, so I stayed silent, and taught myself to be content. But when Jean died …”

  For the first time his voice faltered, and I could see the memory of Jean’s death rise up in him again, the horror of the fall, the sudden slip of a leather glove, the desperate clutching to keep the child safe, the failure and the loss. I saw all this pass behind my husband’s eyes, and I watched him battle it, as I watched him battle that same demon many times in the years to come. It was always hard, but he always won.

  William came back to me when he had finished, his breath coming in great gasps, for he had fought against his horror and his grief as sinners fight for their souls at the gates of Hell. He looked to me and met my eyes, asking not for pity but for patience as he took his next breath. I had been raised to patience, so I sat silent, a hope I had never thought to cherish beginning to burn within my breast.

  “When Jean died,” he said, continuing as if the battle he had fought had never been. He asked for neither pity nor indulgence, only that I listen to his words. “When he died, I thought that I would die, too. And when I saw that I would not, I wondered why. The only reason left for my life is you.”

  He said this simply. He spoke with the quiet sincerity that was his very nature. “I have left your brother
behind me. I mourned him, and now, it is over. I have accepted it. I hope that you will accept me.”

  I knew that my husband hungered after other men. I knew that he cared for them, as they loved and cared for him. Not for his position, but for the beauty of his soul, his kindness. It seemed that my husband was offering me his love. I supposed that some men loved both men and women, though I had never known my husband to take a woman as a lover. Perhaps I would be the first.

  I did not know how to speak to him, so I leaned down and kissed him, hoping the touch of my lips would say more than my words could.

  He kissed me back, and this time he kissed me as a lover might, fervently, desperately, as if I were water and he was drowning, as if he longed to die a long slow death in my arms.

  His arms were around me then, and he lifted me from my chair as if I weighed nothing, as if I were a feather on the wind. He took me to his bed, the bed I had never slept in, and laid me down on it, still kissing me – first my eyelids, then my cheeks, my throat, and again my lips – all with the fervency that if he were to stop, he would most certainly die.

  I wondered if this tide of emotion was but one more facet of his grief, if he would make love to me and hate me for it afterward. Even as I was thinking this, he drew back from me and looked into my eyes, as if he read my mind and heart and all their contents. I thought for one horrible moment that he might turn from me as he had turned from me on our wedding night and on every night since, but he did not. He looked into my eyes, and I saw that his eyes had tears in them.

  “Alais, I swear to you by the God you worship, I will always love you, until the day I die. I took an oath before your brother and that oath I keep. But I add to it this oath: I am yours, now and always, as long as this body draws breath. And when I die, if there is any part of me that knows you, if there is any remnant of my soul on the wind as the Church teaches us, that part of me will still love you, until the winds stir it, and it vanishes into the vast nothingness of time. This I swear. May your God be my witness.”