To Be Queen (5 page)

The negotiations for my marriage had already begun between our duchy and the King of France. Though it took years for such an alliance to be forged, one day I would marry the heir to the French throne. The politics between Aquitaine and the kingdom of France were delicate, made more so by the interference of the Church, which wanted a hand in everything. But I knew whether the Church supported us or not, my father would see my marriage made.

Papa's troubadour, Bertrand, bowed low to me. As Bertrand stood to sing, I found Baron Rancon still watching me. His eyes cradled mine, and warmth began to pool in the center of my belly. I sipped from that pool of languid pleasure, but did not drink deep. That pool could drown me, and I knew it.

I drew my mind from Baron Rancon, and focused my attention on the troubadour who sang in my honor. Bertrand's poetry told of my beauty and its power, of how it would rise from the Aquitaine to hold all men in its sway.

As the song ended, I sent my voice, melodious and light, into every corner of the great hall. “I thank you, Bertrand. You have outdone us all in honor.”

I took a ring of silver and gold from my finger, cast in my father's crest. I raised it for the company to see, then pressed it into his palm. For once, Bertrand was struck dumb. For all his practiced poetry, he had no words to speak. He bowed low, drawing my ring onto the little finger of his right hand. He touched it reverently. I had never shown him such favor before.

“Who else might sing for me?” I asked. “Who among my barons would stand and honor me?”

My barons murmured among themselves, like wind through a field of barley.

“I will choose from among the men who sing for me a song of their own devising. The man I choose will be the first tonight to dance with me.”

The men laughed, delighted at this challenge. All my people, men and women both, loved poetry and music, and they loved a contest more. Ever since my grandfather's time, men had written their own songs and sung them in company to win the favor of their ladies. They hoped only to draw a woman into their beds for an hour, or a week. That night, I would challenge that tradition. I would remake it into a tradition of my own.

One baron after another rose to sing for me, as if to woo me for his own. But I was to be their duchess. They could not so much as touch my hand, much less have me in the dark, and they knew this as well as I.

As I listened to their songs, my father caught my eye and smiled. He knew that by setting myself above them as a prize to be won, as a woman to love but not to touch, I hoped to bind every man in my court closer to me. Each man in that hall must love me at least a little, for barons who loved me would not rise up in arms against me. Or so I hoped.

Time would tell.

The last man to sing was the young Baron Rancon.

Rancon sang alone, strumming his own lute, with no musicians to play for him. He gave the company a song of how my beauty rose with the sun each morning, and did not fade when night came; of how I ruled the sun and the moon both, which were mere spheres in the sky, come to circle my throne.

My blood raced, though I schooled my features to cool politeness. His song done, I extended my hand, and let him take it.

My voice did not shake, and neither did my hand, though my heartbeat was loud in my own ears. “The Baron Rancon has carried the day. Let him be the victor, then, for he has conquered me.”

The barons laughed and applauded Rancon, and my father applauded with them. Rancon did not smile, but held my gaze. His palm was warm on mine as he brought me down from the dais onto the dance floor.

Amaria whispered to the musicians at one end of the hall. They struck up a dancing tune, and the men at the lower tables took up their women and came onto the center of the floor as if they had waited all day for it.

Geoffrey of Rancon led me into the dance seamlessly, and I fell into step with him. We moved as if we had danced together before, as if our bodies knew each other already.

His eyes were the brown of chestnuts in autumn, and his gaze was warm with more than lust as he stared down at me. He looked at me as if I were his lady in truth, as if he might offer me marriage and all the kisses and sweet words men offered women alone in the dark.

It was a heady feeling, that first sip of power. I had been raised to rule men all my life, but the heat that rose between us was a different matter altogether.

“I would see you again,” he said.

I stepped away from him, and did not answer, having to count carefully to keep time in the motion of the dance. I hid my hesitation and did not falter. His heated gaze still followed me, until I drew close to him again.

“You will see me many times for the rest of your life,” I said. “I will be your duchess.”

My light tone hid the elation I felt. I had learned to lie as a child, so that now, when my blood was pounding in my throat, I did it easily. But for the first time in my life, the effort of a lie cost me something. I breathed deep, keeping my hand back from his, touching only his fingertips with my own.

“I would see you again tonight,” he said, his gaze hot, his flesh warm on mine.

I drank in his scent, the hint of some unknown spice on his skin. My heart pounded so loudly that I thought Rancon might be able to hear it.

I raised my eyes to his, and took in the sight of him. He was a man of the world with many mistresses; he had sung their praises before he ever sang mine. But in that moment, as my green eyes cradled him, I saw the Baron Rancon falter.

“My lady, you are the most beautiful woman in the world.” I stood on the slippery slope of a man's desire. The choice and the power of this moment were mine. I might slide into Rancon's bed, and seal the promise of the heat that rose between us.

I drew my hand from his as the music ended. “My lord,” I said, “you flatter me.”

I spoke as if I were a modest maid, but my eyes held the same heat as his own. I watched him pause, searching my face, before he turned to lead me back to the dais.

As we walked, I tripped, catching myself on his arm, as if I feared that I might fall. I bent to adjust the dyed leather slipper on my foot, and he leaned down to balance me.

“Meet me behind the curved staircase on the second level three hours before dawn,” I said, my voice low so that only he would hear. When I stood again, still clinging to him, Rancon's breath was as short as mine.

He said not a word and did not meet my eyes again, but delivered me to my father.

I danced every dance, the fire of new-discovered lust mounting in my belly. As I whirled and touched hands with each young man in turn, one after the other, I felt Baron Rancon's eyes on me. I did not look at him. Instead I wove a spell over each man I danced with, so that they all began to love me, at least a little. What else is beauty for, if not to hold all men in your sway?

 

 

WELL AFTER MIDNIGHT, WHILE ALIX SLEPT SOUNDLY ON HER pallet, Amaria helped me dress to meet Rancon in the hallway of my father's keep. Her dark blond hair lay neatly across her forehead. Her clear blue gaze met mine without judgment. She said not a word, knowing that any warning she might give me would fall on barren ground.

Amaria had been with me for more than three years, and she knew me well. I would never injure my chances to be Queen of France by losing my maidenhead to the Baron Rancon. But I would have my will, or why else be queen at all?

At the appointed time, hours before dawn, I slipped out into the corridor, carrying no lamp. I knew my father's palace at Poitiers so well that had I been struck blind, I would still have found my way. So I moved along the corridor toward the curved staircase, my hand trailing along the damp stone, until I felt warm flesh beneath my fingertips, and the Baron Rancon's hand closed over mine.

He whispered low, “My lady, I have waited for you.”

He drew me close, retreating with me beneath the curved staircase. There was a little space for both of us to stand upright. He turned his back to the corridor, pressing me against the stone. My heart leaped in my chest. I had thought him biddable, completely my own creature, but here, alone, without my father's court between us, he was a man, and I, a girl.

My heart thundered in my breast, and my breath came short as my lust rose, a great tide that almost swamped my reason. Rancon pulled me to him, his hands on my waist beneath my cloak, his breath hot on my cheek.

“I did not mean to keep you waiting,” I said.

The sound of his laughter caressed me, like hands running up my spine and into my hair. I shivered, and Rancon drew me closer, the heat and weight of his body against mine.

I felt a tremor of fear, but my lust rose to conquer it. Rancon leaned down and took my lips with his.

I drew back from his mouth before I fell to him completely. I forced lightness into my voice, a tone that belied my desire. “How do you know who I am? I might be any number of women, come here to meet you . . . one of my ladies, perhaps.”

Rancon laughed low, and again, I felt the heat of the sound on my skin. His hands moved up from my waist to caress my rib cage, as he pressed me back against the stone wall. “My lady, I would know you anywhere.”

“Then let me be clear,” I said. “I will not give you my maidenhead. That is for another.”

He kissed me, but drew back almost at once, as if to seal a bargain between us. “I swear I will protect you, my lady. Even from yourself. You will beg me to take you, but I will not. I seek only to give us both a little pleasure.”

He leaned close, and I felt his smile against my cheek as he bent down to nuzzle my throat. “After all, it was you who invited me.”

I thought to reprimand him for his impertinence, but his hand moved to cup my breast, and his lips trailed over my throat. He opened his mouth on mine as his hands caressed me.

I understood now why women must guard themselves so carefully before marriage. It would have been so easy to slip, to give myself and my future away for a trifle.

But it did not feel like a trifle, with Rancon's tongue on mine, his rough, large hands caressing me. Just as I thought to push him away, his touch turned gentle, and his lips caressed my cheek, his breath warm in my ear.

“Lady, forgive me. I can go no further with you. I do not trust myself to stop.”

Rancon laid his forehead against my own, and we clung to each other. He caught his breath before I caught mine.

“You will soon be bound in marriage to another. But know this, lady. Nothing is over between us.”

His promise was a warm balm against my already heated skin. He covered my lips once more with his, pressing his body against me for one long, delicious moment. Then he pulled away and left me without his heat or touch.

The cold of my father's castle surrounded me, and crept along my flesh beneath my gown, for Rancon's hands had laid my cloak open. I was light-headed, and my blood still thundered in my ears. I knew that I had come too close to the abyss.

But how sweet it was, to touch a man like that. When I was married, I would touch my husband that way, and no one would stop me.

I made my way back to my rooms. When I scratched on the door, Amaria drew me inside and brought me close to the fire. I did not let her undress me right away, but sat by the brazier, my cloak wrapped around me. Rancon's scent lingered in its woolen folds.

I remembered his last words to me as I sat safe in my rooms. I heard the promise in them, and I shivered, as if his hands were once more on my body.

The next morning, my father called me to him. I had slept little; I still felt the heat of Rancon's touch. Amaria dressed my hair with pearls and gold, covering her handiwork with a veil of silk. My bronze hair hung down my back in braids, in case my father wished to go on a hunt, as he had promised me we would.

I entered Papa's antechamber and found a tall, emaciated monk whose tonsure revealed a network of veins and bumps on the crown of his head. Never before had I noticed a monk's tonsure, but never before had one looked so hideous to me.

My father stood when I entered, but the monk remained seated, as if to show that he had no more respect for me than if I had been a common drab. I felt the first flame of my temper rise, but I tamped it down. I curtsied to my father, including the monk in the gesture of good manners that Alix had spent years of her life drumming into me. The monk had hoped to see me falter. I saw from his annoyance that I had succeeded in hiding my ire from him.

“Daughter, may I present Bernard of Clairvaux, come lately from Paris with greetings from our esteemed lord King Louis of France.”