Seduction (18 page)

Since the aged king had already sired eighteen children, Veronique was not pressured into bearing a child, as his earlier wives had been. His heir, the slovenly Prince Pippin, had already been named. So instead of being treated as a royal brood mare, Veronique was treasured as the king’s companion in his old age. While his progeny went about the business of making war and converting the Lombards and Saxons to Christianity, the old king contentedly taught his young bride the stories of his youth, stories of his battles both on the field and within his widespread, discordant family.

“When I die, my beauty,” he advised her near the end of his life, “do not allow my sons and grandsons and their wives to make use of you for their own benefit.”

She was so young at the time that she didn’t exactly know what the old king was telling her, but she found out soon enough. When his health began to fail, Charlemagne’s eldest son, Pippin (whose posture was so poor that his father referred to him as “the hunchback”), summoned Veronique to a council meeting where a bunch of sweaty, belching warrior chiefs looked her over to decide whether or not she would make a suitable bride for a recalcitrant Saxon noble.

“Charlemagne’s child-queen should be recognized as quite a prize, even to those barbarians,” Pippin said. The others agreed.

“How dare you!” Veronique answered, her eyes blazing with fury. “Your father, not you, is king of the Franks. It is his wishes that must be followed, not yours. And it is not his wish to send me to the frozen land of the Saxons to live like a dog!”

Pippin shrugged in his usual lackadaisical manner. “What my father wishes is of no import any longer, as he will be dead within the week. If you are a prudent girl, you will pack your possessions quickly, because at the hour of Charlemagne’s death”—with this he stuck his finger near Veronique’s face—“you will be on your way to Saxony!”

As the men laughed at her evident dismay, she ran to her dying husband, who lay in a deathlike slumber. “Charlemagne,” she whispered into his ear, “husband and friend, please hear me, I beg you.” Then, blowing a soft stream of air across the old king’s face, she willed him to consciousness.

The sensation Veronique had always experienced during her healings was physical, as if pinpricks of light were coming through her body into her hands, and then out through her slender fingers. Now, clasping Charlemagne’s liver-spotted hands, she concentrated on sending the light within her into him, sensing her life force traveling from the center of her being into his, until at last the king’s eyes opened as he gasped in surprise.

“Veronique!” he exclaimed. “By God, girl, how long was I asleep?”

“Four days,” she said, almost weeping with relief.

He reached his hand up to touch her face. “Only four days? Yet in such a short time, you have grown to full womanhood.”

“I have?” She looked into a mirror. Indeed, she had changed. Her face had lost its childish roundness, and her bosom had grown fuller. “I . . . I think I gave you some of my life,” she confessed.

The king looked at her, uncomprehending, and then burst into hearty laughter. “If so, ’twas the greatest of gifts,” he said.

When she explained what his son had planned for her after Charlemagne’s death, the king called for his valet to dress him in his finest robes. Placing the royal crown upon his head, he walked to the chamber where Pippin and his cronies were still plotting, and burst through the doors like a bear surveying a herd of sheep.

“Make my wife the property of the Saxons, will you?” he roared.

Pippin was completely flummoxed by his father’s unexpected appearance. “My king, I—”

“Be silent!” Charlemagne bellowed. “I am here to tell you, unworthy spawn, that you will never occupy the throne of Gaul!” He turned on the others in the room. “As for the rest of you, I expect you to forswear any allegiance to this
creature
”—he cast a disgusted look at his son—“or else fight me here and now.” He unsheathed his magnificent sword from its scabbard and held it aloft, as if he were about to charge into battle.

The assembled nobles looked from one to the other as the aged king stood prepared to fight them all.

“Subdue him!” Pippin shouted in desperation. “Don’t you see, the old man’s bluffing! He’ll be in his grave by spring. You have your swords. Use them!”

“If you dare,” Charlemagne said with quiet deadliness. He wore his favorite battle cloak, clean but still stained with the blood of his enemies. Beneath the crown that had been forged for him alone, his mane of white hair fell over his shoulders like a cloud. His large blue eyes burned fiercely in his florid face. The heavy sword remained poised over his head, held by a powerful arm that never trembled under its weight.

One by one the nobles, casting a wary eye toward Pippin, fell to their knees before Charlemagne. “My liege,” they said, ignoring the would-be usurper. “My king.”

His son tried to leave the room, but the old king stopped him with the tip of his sword at Pippin’s throat. “Send in your brother Louis,” he commanded.

Pippin scowled, but he knew that, firstborn son or not, the old man would not hesitate to run him through if he disobeyed him. “Certainly,” he said smoothly. “May I ask why?”

“Tell him I’m going to change his name. To Pippin.”

Pippin whirled around. “What?”

“I like the name. It should not be wasted on a cretin like you.”

The young man sputtered. “But . . . but . . . what shall I call myself, then?”

The old man’s eyes glinted. “Call yourself Dorcas, after the Saxon family I’ll be sending you to,” he said. “You’ll marry a fine, strapping Teutonic maiden, and live out your life in the Saxon hinterlands, where I won’t have to kill you.”

“This is madness!” Pippin hissed.

“Sealing a treaty with the Saxons through marriage was your idea, and it was a good one. King Dorcas would rather have my son than my wife, anyway, even if that son arrives without title. I’ll give you a nice chest of gold as a dowry.”

“A
dowry
?” Pippin shouted, despite his father’s threatening sword. “Are you saying I am to be banished to the Saxons like some
woman
?”

Charlemagne blinked in feigned surprise. “But wasn’t that what you were planning to do with my wife?”

“Your
eleventh
wife, Father.”

“My
only
wife, at the moment,” Charlemagne said. “And my friend. But you wouldn’t understand that.”

Pippin groaned in disgust. The very idea of friendship with a woman was repulsive to him.

“That is why, to broaden your thinking, you will take the name of your Saxon wife, to perpetuate King Dorcas’s line.”

Tears of rage shone in Pippin’s eyes. “I will never be subjected to such humiliation!” he spat through clenched teeth.

“Then go to a monastery,” Charlemagne said. “Wherever you live is of no importance to me, so long as I never have to see your face again.” He turned his back on the young man and crossed his arms.

As Pippin stomped out of the room muttering, Charlemagne laughed the familiar booming laugh that had set his men at ease during the fiercest battles. Still on their knees, the former followers of his now-banished son tittered nervously, awaiting their fate.

“Oh, get up, you craven dogs,” Charlemagne said. “Tonight we shall drink together, and you shall entertain no more idiot ideas if you want to keep those empty heads of yours.”

To a man, they roared their approval, then bowed low to their king in relief and gratitude.

• • •

Charlemagne had won a decisive battle that night. Pippin was banished, and a new Pippin placed at the top of the list to inherit the kingdom. But as time went by, the king fell ill more and more often. And each time after he recovered, he saw that his young wife had aged beyond her years.

“By God, you’ve the look of someone nearer to thirty than twenty,” he observed as he came out of his fifth bout with death.

“They were years I gave willingly,” Veronique answered.

Before, he had treated her response as a joke, but this time he could not deny the proof of his own eyes. “Then it is true,” he said. “You have given me your years to replace my own.”

She looked away. She had known for some time that, although she did not understand how it happened, she had indeed been sending her life into him.

“They will call you a sorceress.”

She smiled. “But you will protect me,” she said.

“If I can.” It was the first time she had ever heard him speak with even a hint of uncertainty. “But I cannot allow you to squander that gift on an old man who has already lived more than seventy-two winters.”

She took his hand. “I’ve told you, I give it willingly,” she said.

He smiled at her. “And it is with gratitude that I decline,” the great king answered.

• • •

It was only a matter of weeks before he fell ill again. Dismissing his physicians, he called for Veronique, as he had for the past two years. The medical men, as well as many members of the court, whispered that the young queen was a witch. The new heir did not permit such accusations, but when the priests joined in the gossip, Charlemagne became truly worried for Veronique’s safety.

“The jackals are circling,” he said. “They say that you are keeping me alive through witchcraft.”

Veronique pressed a cold cloth against his brow. “Just give yourself to me, sire. Allow me—”

“No.” He withdrew his hand from hers. “Listen to me.” His eyes glistened with fever. “If you remain here, my court and family will surely kill you,” he said. “You must leave this place, Veronique. Now. Tonight.”

“My king, I cannot—”

“Obey me!” He struggled to remain lucid. “Beloved, my time is short. Take the treasures I have given you and seek sanctuary in the abbey of Auvergne. I will provide a trustworthy escort.”

Again she tried to object, but he silenced her. “Do not speak further of this,” he said, gasping, hanging onto the last threads of his life. “And please, spare me the indignity of watching me wither.”

Veronique could only look into the old king’s face and weep.

“Go, my darling,” Charlemagne commanded.

Those were his last words to her.

CHAPTER

•

TWENTY-TWO

For the past few pages, I’d been dimly aware of a sound crowding into my consciousness. I finally recognized it: a woman weeping.

Sobbing. And it was coming from Marie-Therèse’s room.

I remembered what Peter had said about her having to leave the house on her birthday.
She probably knows,
I thought. It was a terrible thing to be kicked out of your home for no reason other than the fact that you got old. What kind of stupid rule was that, anyway?

I closed the book and went to her room. “Marie-Therèse?” I called, knocking on the door. “It’s Katy. Can I come in?”

There was a brief scuffling before she appeared in a brocade dressing gown, a lace-edged handkerchief held to her nose. “Please,” she said, gesturing for me to enter. Marie-Therèse still spoke English to me, even though no one else besides Peter did.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

“It’s just a sniffle,” she said, turning away from me. “Probably the weather . . .”

“Is it about your birthday?” I asked timidly.

She sank down onto her bed, her shoulders slumped and trembling. “After all this time . . . ,” she sobbed. “They’ve voted me out, Katy. Like an old dog they are putting out on the street.”

“Anyone who’d do that to a dog would be pretty repulsive,” I said. “But to you. . .  . It’s unforgivable. I’ll bet we could get a lawyer to—”

“No, no, no!” she exclaimed, alarmed. “We must never do such a thing.”

“Why not?” I asked. “That’s what lawyers are for.”

“No,” she repeated, shaking her head emphatically. “This was our agreement. If I contact the authorities, they will . . .” She threw up her hands.

“They will what?”

“Please,” she whispered, looking at the door. “I have already said too much.”

“But Marie—”

“I told you, I agreed to this!” She subdued her shaking hands into fists. Then, with a weary sigh, she sat down and buried her head in her arms. “We all do, before we ever come here.” Her voice was ragged. “And I was far older than most when I agreed, so I cannot use my youth as an excuse. I just never thought this day would really come.”