The Queen's Pawn (33 page)

I smiled my wicked smile at them, knowing that smile had brought many men to their knees over the years. Both young men blushed, and I was well rewarded. My son kissed my cheek as if his pain was not deep, as if the poison inside him did not hinder him. I saw his pain, but I saw also that it might be remedied. He would always love Alais, for she was the only woman on earth who was so like me, but there were other women who might comfort him.

I leaned across Richard and spoke to Gregory. “You must see to it that Richard takes a lover. He cannot moon after the princess any longer.”

“Madam, I have already told him so.” Gregory met Richard’s eyes, and tried not to smile.

Richard had done all he could for one night, and would take no more advice from me. “I am going to my rooms, Mother. Unless you have need of me.”

“Go, Richard. I will see you in the morning.”

“Who will escort you to your rooms?”

His solicitousness was sweet, as he always was. He was the greatest warrior in Europe, but Richard had a soft heart. He would shield me from the dark, as if that were all I had to fear.

I smiled at Richard’s man. “The Lord Northumberland will be kind enough to see me safe home.”

John gulped, and a blush suffused his fair skin. “Your Majesty, it will be my honor.”

Richard looked into my eyes, searching for my motive. He did not find it. He kissed me once more, swiftly on the cheek, then turned to leave, as if he could not bear the sight of his father’s hall a moment longer.

Gregory followed him, for we all knew that it would not do to have the prince left alone in the dark halls of his father’s castle. Gregory would bring my son a woman that night, and Richard most likely would have none of her.

I caught the eye of young Margaret, who was still at court, though not as openly welcomed by Richard as she once had been. I nodded to her, and she flushed, honored by my attention, for she had been banished from my women for over a month now. I raised one eyebrow, and inclined my head toward the door Richard had departed from.

Margaret colored visibly, and leaped to her feet as if scalded. She bowed low to me, and hurried after Richard. Perhaps she was one woman my son would not turn away

John of Northumberland then led me out by the hand in front of my husband’s court. All the world knew that I had never taken a lover since marrying Henry. All knew that it would not be worth my life to defy the king in such a way But tonight would be different. Tonight I would indulge myself, and Henry be damned.

John of Northumberland took me back to my own rooms, and my women withdrew as they had done in the past when Henry would visit me, as silently as if John were the king himself.

The young man stood tall, and looked frightened, as if he had never been alone in a room with a woman before. I thought at first he was simply overawed, for I was queen, the most beautiful woman in Europe, the only woman to hold power in her own right in the whole of Christendom. I thought to offer him some wine, to ask him about his adventures in war at my son’s side, but then I saw the truth. He honored me, but did not desire me. I was old enough to be his grandmother.

I had never been one to lie to myself. I sighed, and drank my wine. “That is all, John. You may go.”

He left at once, bowing low, knowing that I had gifted him with a reprieve. He knew, as I did, that all the court would believe him my lover, though he had not so much as touched my hand. I hoped it raised his standing among his comrades, as it once would have done. I would never know, for I would not ask my spies to tell me. Though I had to be honest with myself, I did not have to listen to the honest opinions of others unless I wished to. One more advantage of being queen.

So I sat alone, without my women to attend me, as I had always done since Alais left me. No longer did I have her soft hands in my hair. No longer did I feel the gentle pull of her brush as she sat behind me, keeping my feet to the fire, that I might be comfortable as she tended me. Alais had cared for me from love, and not from fear. She was the only woman who had ever done so. Even my daughters feared me. Even my sons.

I lay down on my bed, but I did not sleep. I stared at the shadows that ran across my ceiling, the shadows that once would have shown the motion of me and my chosen lover, moving together in the half-light. Those shadows once would have shown Henry standing over me, leaning down to take my lips with his.

Tonight Henry did attend a woman. Once more, as it had been for many years, that woman was not me.

 

 

“How like you my son?”

The king was baiting me as he had at dinner, purposefully naming Richard to me, under the auspices of John. It had been a long meal, and painful. Now I saw that Henry meant to sound out my loyalty as if he doubted me. I, too, had begun to doubt him. I had returned to find Eleanor still at Windsor, and not on her way to Fontevrault as Henry had promised. Henry had not yet sent her away, as he had sworn to me he would. Whatever else was true, I did not now think to allow Henry to bait me further.

Marie Helene saw that I wanted her gone. She curtsied first to the king, and then to me, taking Bijou into her arms and leaving us alone.

“John is very pleasant, my lord. I cannot decide who he takes after, you or the queen.”

“You still call her the queen, do you?”

“She is still queen, my lord. She still wears your crown. She sits at your table and drinks your wine and raises her glass to you. She has not yet been thrown down.”

“Eleanor sits at my table and drinks my wine because I will it, and for no other reason. In time, she will go to Fontevrault, and take up the veil there, just as I have told you she would.”

“When, Your Majesty? For there cannot be two queens in this keep.”

“No,” he answered. “There cannot.”

I heard the suggestion behind his words, that if he was to change his mind, to turn from me even now, letters to the pope or no, I would be cast aside with nothing but my shame. I tasted fear, but swallowed it whole. I kept my face blank, my eyes serene, as both my father and Eleanor had taught me.

I smiled at Henry; he saw no hint of my fear as I drew the laces of my gown between my fingers. I had become adept at dressing and undressing myself at Deptford. Tonight I did it slowly, knowing that Henry savored the sight of my clothes falling off me as he savored little else. But tonight, though I watched the lust rise in his eyes, he would not be distracted.

“Eleanor is not the queen, Alais. I made her queen, and now I withdraw that privilege from her. I give it to you.”

My gown slipped down my shoulders, onto the stone floor. I stepped out of it, leaving the beautiful gold silk where it lay. I drew my hair down over one breast, laying my silk veil on the table next to the wine that Marie Helene had left for us.

I still wore my fine linen shift, but it was very thin. I made sure to stand between the king and a brazier, so that he could see the shadow of my body in the firelight.

Henry stared at me, but he did not move to touch me. I poured wine into the same golden goblet Eleanor had drunk from that afternoon. I offered the wine to Henry first, but when he did not take it, I drank it myself.

“You have changed, Alais,” he said.

‘No doubt, my lord. Loving you has changed me, and for the better.“

“But Richard ...”

I raised one hand, as I never would have done anywhere else, at any other time, to silence him. I would let him win that night regarding Eleanor, for I had no choice. But I would not stand by while he named his son to me. I had lost Richard, and the loss pained me. As much as I had gained from Henry, as much as I stood to win, I loved Richard, and my pain over his infidelity burned in my breast, right above my heart. My own disloyalty had not lifted that burden from me. Revenge was not the tonic I had hoped it would be.

“My lord, your sons are well and good. In time, they will learn to serve you better. But in these rooms, I do not want to hear of them. I would rather hear of you.”

Henry’s eyes narrowed. I stepped forward, and stood close to him, so that I could feel the heat of his body through his gown.

“John is charming, Henry But he is not you. No one is like you. No one will ever be like you.”

“Because I am king,” he said, his eyes drawn to the outline of my lips.

I pressed myself to him, my hands running up his back, until my arms were wrapped around his neck. I watched as he felt the softness of my body, how I yielded to him here, as everywhere, as Eleanor did not.

Just before his eyes caught fire, just before he took my lips with his, I said, “Because you are Henry.”

 

We went on that way for a month, Eleanor keeping state at the lower end of the king’s table in the great hall, making each feast merrier than the last, the merriment more forced as each day passed. Henry stayed in thrall to me and to my young body, as I stayed in thrall to him. We heard nothing from the pope. Though we had not yet expected to, Henry grew more restless, so that I had to work harder to tame him, and to draw him down onto his bed with me.

I kept my own fears hidden, even from myself. My memory of my father’s words about Henry and the oaths he would not keep came back to me, when I was alone in the dark. But in daylight, and while I slept by Henry’s side, I kept these fears locked in my heart, out of sight. I did all I could not to think on them, but they plagued me, as did my father’s warning.

Henry was a hard man with a quick temper, but he rarely spoke a harsh word to me. He enjoyed watching me in the firelight at night, as I drew a brush through my long dark hair. He loved to watch me play with Bijou, and ride Sampson farther and faster than I ever had. My time with him taught me not to fear horses, so that Sampson became too sedate a mount for me, and Henry gave me another.

Henry and I went on a hunt two months into our love affair, and though I had no falcon of my own, I did not shrink from Henry’s hawk as I had from Richard’s.

Henry cut a piece of dove for his hawk to feed on, a reward for bringing the bird down. I watched without flinching as Henry fed the hawk the bloody bit of flesh, fresh from the kill. He must have heard the story of my other hunt—whether from Eleanor or Richard, I did not know. Or perhaps he had made it his business to know all he could about me, and about my time with Eleanor, before he had come to court and seen me for himself.

Henry eyed me over the sleek head of his hawk, the great bird hooded once more before it could turn its eye on me. Henry watched me for a long moment without speaking as I reached out and caressed the hawk gently, one more reward for its faithful service.

“You do not like a hunt, Alais. Or so I had been told.”

I smiled at him, my face open as if my heart were light, except for my eyes. “So it was, Your Grace. I did not savor watching a smaller bird killed.”

“And yet that is the way of the world, Alais.”

“I know.” I met his eyes. “I have become more of a falcon myself, Your Grace. I do not feed on others. But neither do I stand still and let others feed on me.”

He laughed then, handing his hawk to his squire, who took the bird and withdrew, his eyes cast down, as if he could hear nothing of our speech. I had gotten used to being listened to at every moment. Only between the curtains of his bed or mine were we truly free of others. I accepted that as a necessity, for he was king.

“You have changed, Alais,” he said.

“I have, Your Grace. I have come to know myself.”

Henry drew his horse beside mine and led me beneath a willow tree down by the river, where the water still ran clear and cool, even in the unseasonable warmth of that September. He came off his horse and handed the reins to a groom, taking me from my horse as well.

He did not speak a word, but his men seemed to know him, as I did, for they did not follow us. Henry brought me into a copse of willow trees, where the spongy ground near the river was fragrant with clover, and a hint of honeysuckle, though those flowers had long since fallen.

Henry threw his cloak on the ground and drew me to him without speaking, his hands ranging over me as they did when we were alone in his room, the door shut behind us. I pressed myself against him, reveling in the hard contours of his body, for he was fit for a man almost forty, his hair as thick as it had ever been, his hands as strong. Those hands cupped me, and drew me hard against him, so that I could feel his desire through the thickness of his gown.

“My lord king, it seems you have something for me.”

He laughed low, his lips trailing from my cheek to my throat, and down onto my breasts through the soft silk of my gray gown. He drew me down, and mounted me, until we were joined as one, our clothes pushed aside but not drawn off, his breath hot on my cheek and in my hair.

He brought me to the peak of pleasure as he always did, but for some reason, that day, the pleasure made me sad. Before long, winter would come, and time would continue to slide away from us, as the river made its way inexorably to the sea. I felt my mortality for the first time with Henry beside me, his passion spent, breathing gently into my hair.

“I love you, Alais.”

It was the first time he spoke those words to me, though I had seen his love for me in his eyes since the night he first had me. I kissed him, savoring the taste of him, not wanting the moment to end. Like all things, this spell, too, would be broken.

For that moment, I cast aside all thought of the future, all thought of Eleanor. I would sit on her throne, wearing her heavy golden crown, doling out death and judgment at Henry’s side, as I must if I was to be queen. I pushed away all thought of Richard, and my childhood hopes. I kissed Henry until I could think of nothing but him.