The Queen's Pawn (22 page)

“I have seen it with my own eyes, Majesty, and I do not lie. All men love you. They do not stop loving you, when you are gone.”

I looked up the table, to where Henry sat eating venison, his eyes on his master of the horse, who sat beside him. “The king loves you this way,” I said, “though I think he does not know it.”

“Alais,” she said, her voice low, her tone so quiet that I had to lean close to hear her. “I think you are right.”

She looked down the table. Henry did not feel her gaze, but kept speaking, uninterrupted, as his master of the horse nodded, certain to do as he was bidden.

“But since Henry does not know of it, his love does me little good.”

Eleanor did not look at me again, nor at Henry, but sat and watched as each course came, taking nothing, smiling graciously at the server who brought each dish to her trencher, though she did not eat.

I thought that the king would notice her lack of appetite, and remark upon it, but he never looked at her. It was as if, withdrawn behind a mask of stone, she had become a ghost in her own hall. For without her vibrant laughter and ready wit to draw them, the courtiers all around us turned away from her, and kept their eyes only on the king.

When the meal ended, the musicians came down from their gallery to play the first dance. Richard’s lover, Margaret, came to stand among the dancers as they gathered. I watched as all the court greeted her warmly, as Richard’s friends and allies fawned over her. I saw clearly that all the court knew of her, and of who she was to Richard. All the court had known of Richard’s lover, but me.

The courtiers rose and the king gestured with a smile for the music to start. Just then, with his men flanking him, Richard strode into the hall.

My heart twisted at the sight of him. He stood, tall and fair, his red hair a lion’s mane around his shoulders, his eyes fixed on Henry. I stared at him, hoping that he might glance at me, but he had eyes only for the king.

“My lord.”

Richard’s voice was flat, but it carried well over the great hall. The musicians had sounded the first note, but at the word of their prince, the music died away. Richard bowed once, not low, and then raised his eyes to Henry on his dais. Henry’s face hardened as he looked at his son. In spite of my fury at Richard, and the sick nausea that came upon me as I looked at him, I felt my breath catch in my throat.

“‘Your Majesty’ is the proper greeting to use when addressing your king.”

Richard’s face was like stone, and I felt his anger rising off him in waves. I saw his temper revealed to me for the first time. There were layers and layers to this man who would be my husband; it seemed that day they were to be laid out before me, one by one, that I might see them all, and know the man I was getting.

“Your Majesty,” Richard said, his voice harder still.

Henry’s eyes narrowed; I saw the beginnings of the legendary Plantagenet temper in his face. All the court held their breath as they looked at father and son, facing each other in the great hall as if they both wished for a weapon.

“It is also the custom to kneel before your king, especially when you come late to the king’s feast, so late that you miss the meat, and break the mirth with your arrival.”

Richard did not apologize, but stood his ground.

“Kneel,” Henry said.

I saw Richard flinch, and I began to be afraid for him. In spite of my anger at Richard, a cooler part of my brain began to speak to me, to warn me that Henry was in earnest, and that his rage was stronger than Richard’s, and farther reaching. I remembered the fate of Thomas Becket, and I started to pray. I prayed to the Holy Mother that Richard’s pride might bend, that he might hide his fury and do as the king bade him.

“My lord king.”

Richard lowered himself to one knee. He did not stay down, but rose again just as quickly, his obeisance and his rise one smooth motion.

“I come to ask that you honor your sworn word before God. I ask that you honor my betrothal”

Henry started to laugh. His laughter rose and filled the hall, the stone walls throwing it back at me until it seemed that laughter was everywhere at once. I bowed my head, and looked at the king. He was not full of mirth at all; laughter was the way he chose to vent his fury

“Betrothal? Are there not women enough to slake your lust? And yet you come into my hall and make demands of your liege lord?”

“I demand nothing, sire. I ask only that you do as you have sworn you must.”

“Must? Must?” Henry rose to his feet.

Men-at-arms stepped forward from the shadows, armed not with swords but with pikes. I started to rise, to stand between Richard and the king, but Eleanor gripped my hand so hard her fingernails dug into my flesh, and her rings bit into my wrist. I kept my seat.

“This is not a word one uses to God’s anointed king. I must do nothing but my will. I am king in this hall. You will never be.”

“Honor my betrothal, Father. Set the date for our wedding.”

“It’s the wedding night you crave, boy. And again I say, slake your lust somewhere else. For the Princess Alais is in my keeping, and she will stay in my keeping until I deem otherwise.”

“She is in your power. Give her to me.”

“Get out.”

Henry’s voice was not the shout I expected but a deadly calm that belied the fury on his face. “Get out of my sight, you miserable whelp. For now I tell you this: you will never have her. Not today Not tomorrow. Not next year. Not for as long as I draw breath.”

I clutched Eleanor’s hand, and turned to her, that she might stand between them, and stop this. Her face was as pale as driven snow.

Father and son faced each other with such hatred that if one had held a weapon, the other would be dead. No one in the hall moved, or even breathed, in that long moment of silence.

Richard did not speak again, but turned on his heel and left the hall with his men following him. He left me there, clutching his mother’s hand.

Henry looked neither right nor left, but strode from his own hall without a backward glance. He went out a side entrance, into the corridor that led to his private apartments.

The courtiers did not gossip or laugh when this scene was done. They stared at one another in the deadly silence, until, one after the next, they rose from their benches or moved out from the shadows, where they had gone to get away from the prince, and from the wrath of the king. Every one of the courtiers turned and left the hall, and the servants with them, until Eleanor and I were left alone.

“Stop him,” I said. “Don’t let Henry kill him.”

She smoothed my curls back from my face. “He will never kill Richard,” Eleanor said. “Not as long as I draw breath. Now let me go.”

I saw then that my fingers were clinging to hers, our earlier rancor far from my mind. I forced my fingers to relax and release her. My hands were stiff with fear. Eleanor chafed them, drawing blood back into them. She stood and kissed me.

“Fear nothing, Alais. I will go to the king. Follow me in five minutes’ time. Do you know the way?”

“I will find it,” I said, meeting her gaze without flinching.

She left me then, and I sat alone. The hall was empty but for the rats that moved under the tables, looking for scraps now that all the court had fled.

 

I found the king in his antechamber, in the room that led to the royal apartments where he slept. Eleanor stood facing him, and I could see no traces of his rage, as if it had never been. The king and queen stood together, a few feet apart, but close enough that they made me think of conspirators, come together to weave a plot. Henry stood still, a letter of vellum in his hand.

I thanked God that the king was no longer angry as I knelt on the hard wooden floor.

“You may leave us.”

Henry’s voice was calm, and almost sweet. I blinked, thinking that he had ordered me from him already, when I saw a girl not much older than myself cross the room to him. She wore little, just a shift with a fur robe thrown around it, though spring had passed already into summer.

Her hair was long and curly, like mine, and its blond length reached her waist. Her eyes were blue like the summer sky, and I was surprised how pretty she was.

I did not think to question her presence, until I saw her kiss the king.

I felt my throat close with jealousy I tried to force my eyes from the sight, but I could not look away. The king had not kissed me that way, down by the waterside. His lips had not devoured me as if he would drink me in.

Henry caressed her hair, his hand coming to rest on the small of her back. He stroked her backside absently, as one might stroke a horse, his eyes never leaving Eleanor’s face.

“I will come to you anon,” he said.

The girl left him, closing the door to his bedroom behind her. The king turned to me at once, his paramour forgotten. There was nothing of the connection between us in his eyes, as if our time together by the riverside had never been.

“You come into my presence unannounced and uncalled for. What do you want, Princess?”

“I come to beg Your Majesty’s forgiveness.”

Henry’s face smoothed to blankness.

I meant to speak for Richard, to call on Henry’s kindness to me, but it seemed his son no longer interested him.

“I have a missive here. Do you know what it says?”

“No, my lord.”

“That’s odd, Alais. Because you wrote it.”

My heart stopped in my chest, and my knees gave way beneath me. Henry held the letter that had been meant for my father.

He did not look away from me, and I came to myself, half kneeling on that stone floor. I would not let them stand over me in triumph. I rose slowly and faced him, trying to gather my scattered wits, the fury in my eyes held in check but barely. I had been betrayed. My father would never read that letter.

Henry saw the calm courage in my eyes, and the fire of my fury behind it. He looked into my face, seeking me out. Had Eleanor not been there, I think he would have said something more. As it was, he walked to the brazier behind him, and cast my letter into the fire.

“Never write to your father again, Alais. I am your king now.”

Henry stared at me for a long moment, as if waiting for me to speak. I said nothing; Eleanor stood watching us. I saw in his eyes not only his anger at me, but, beyond that, a deeper wish to go to his whore.

He walked away from me, his eyes on his bedroom door. The room was silent after he left. The only sound was the crackle of burning vellum, as the last of my letter bled out in smoke and ash.

“Alais,” Eleanor said, “the next time you send a message, see to it that the courier is not in my employ”

I heard her words as if they had been spoken to another. She had betrayed me twice: first, by knowing of Richard’s infidelity and saying nothing, and second, by handing my treasonous letter over to the king. Had our roles been reversed, I would have burned her letter as soon as it came into my hand. The knowledge of her betrayal was a distant pain. I had lost both Richard and Eleanor in the same day, almost in the same hour. I found I could feel nothing.

“I loved you.”

It was my only thought. As I stood there, watching her smile at me, I could only speak the truth.

Eleanor’s smile faded. “You love me still, Alais. You always will. Just as I love you.”

I thought that she would leave me, but she stopped by the door to the outer hallway “I betrayed you to Henry to save Richard. Your letter distracted him, and bought me time. Richard is gone from the keep, safe from Henry’s anger. It was necessary.”

I did not speak, but stared at the door the king had gone through. Behind its smooth panels, I could hear the gasps of his whore as he drove her in love play. Eleanor and I stood together and listened as Henry’s whore called out his name.

The sound of their motions stopped, and there was silence. Eleanor stared at me for a long moment before she turned and walked away

 

 

Marie Helene waited for me in my rooms, Bijou on her knee. My little dog tried to leap from her lap and come to me, but when Marie Helene saw the look on my face, she held her back.

Her sewing basket lay on the table; she had been embroidering the sleeves of my silver gown. I looked down at my arms and saw my own sleeves of gold, where the gold thread traced out my crest, and Richard’s. Eleanor giving my letter to the king was the final stroke that severed my self-control. The anger I had been suppressing all day rose in me in one great tide, and my reason was swept away. I grabbed Marie Helene’s scissors from her basket. She watched me, but did not move, for something in my face held her still.

I could not bear the touch of that silk a moment longer. The cloth of gold reached around me, drawing my slender waist in its grip, choking me so that I could not move, could not breathe.

I did not wait to unlace myself, but cut the laces of my gown with Marie Helene’s scissors with one smooth sweep of my arm. She gasped, frightened that I might hurt myself, but when I laid the scissors down, there was no blood on them. With those laces cut, I could breathe again, but only barely

I tore the gown from my body, the beautiful, expensive gown it had taken three women a week to make. I cast it onto the stone floor of my room, and it lay there like my discarded hope. I thought to throw the scissors down on it, to trample it, as I wanted to trample on Eleanor and Richard for the way they had tricked me, for the way they would still use me, for I was in their power. I was still to marry her son.

When the king’s anger cooled, in a month or a year, I would have to stand before God and swear to obey Richard for the rest of my life. I would have to take yet another oath, and keep it, no matter what came after, no matter how many women he thought to bring to his bed. My jealousy almost overwhelmed me.