To Be Queen (2 page)

I raise my arm and think to see the sunlight shining through the skin of my palm, so thin have I become. And my back pains me now, as it never did when I was young and rode a horse for days on end, seeking something always, a place I never reached, not with all my lovers, not even with Henry.

Death, my last lover, holds me closer than any man ever has. If the Church is right, I will soon burn for all eternity in a fiery pit, where demons cast coals on the flames and all who see me will mock me and laugh.

I have always loathed being laughed at.

I have little faith in the teachings of the Church. The priests and their followers seem to me a simple people, telling tales by the fireside to keep away the dark. I have never been afraid of the dark. My father taught me to look into it without blinking, so that I would be ready for whatever comes out of it.

If, as the Church says, I am to suffer the fires of hell, so be it. To avoid such a fate, I would have to repent of my life. That I will never do.

My priest never gives me penance, for he knows that to do so would be wasted breath. So after I have told him the tales of my life, we sit together in silence and listen to the wind as it moves through the fig trees above our heads.

The priest is the only man allowed here in the women's cloister at Fontevrault. I spent my life in the world of men, and loved it, with all its pain. But I have made this place where women can be free of men. All men but God. Even I cannot stand between these women and Him. In that last battle, they must fend for themselves.

As my life begins to fade from me as a dream fades at morning, I find that I have no regrets. My priest listens to me speak in lieu of penance or prayer, for my life is a story worth telling.

In honor of my father, in honor of all the love he gave me, all the statecraft he taught me, as well as the strength, I dedicate this tale to him. For without him, and his unswerving regard for me, the story of my life as you read it here would never have been possible.

 

 

THE GRASS WAS HIGH AND GREEN, STILL SOFT TO THE TOUCH, for the barley would not be harvested for months to come. I would dance at the harvest festival, and give out prizes to the peasants. Papa would hand them to me.

At ten years old, I was the lady in my mother's place; she and my brother had been dead two years already. Papa's brother, Raymond, lived far away in the Holy Land. He was king in Antioch and would never return to the Aquitaine. I was my father's heir.

I slipped away from my nurse, Alix, and my other women, though Papa had forbidden it. The beauty of the day called to me; the sun and the wind beckoned me from the keep. I could not stand to stay indoors.

It was dangerous for me to roam without a guard, without a woman to call for help if I was to need it. Though the duchy of Aquitaine and the county of Poitou stretched from Burgundy to the ocean, though my father's power was great, even he could not protect me when I went out alone. No woman or child was safe even on my father's lands, and as his heir, I was in more danger than most. A man might take me for ransom and hold my father by the throat; Papa would have paid any price to get me back.

But in spite of the danger, I was never one for obedience. Papa knew that, too.

That summer, the court of Aquitaine was at my father's hunting lodge of Talmont, near the coast, where my mother and brother had died. Every year we came back, always at the same time. Papa had no masses sung for their souls, for he did not believe in the afterlife the Church promised. He had caught the Church in too many lies to believe in their claims of eternal life, and he had taught me to see through their lies as well. But he mourned my mother and brother in his own silent way, and I mourned with him.

On the day they died, Papa had said to me, “I have no son.”

“You do not need a son,” I told him. “You have me.”

The day I ran out alone, I was restless from being too long indoors. Though my father had promised to let me ride my own horse on our next hunt, I was too small to have a falcon of my own. But there was no hunt that day, so I ran outside by myself, slipping away from Alix and my ladies like a thief.

I moved into the barley fields, triumphant in my escape, heading pell-mell for the sea. But I was not the only one beckoned by the green fields and the sky. As I ran, I saw my father's favorite lady, Madeline, standing in the barley with Theobold, one of our troubadours. He was a tall man with wide shoulders, as if he spent his time at war and not in song. His dark eyes beckoned to my father's mistress, and as he took her tiny hand in his, I saw her breath catch.

Madeline was a beautiful woman, the younger daughter of one of my father's knights. Instead of remarrying upon her husband's death, at twenty-five Madeline had come to the court of Aquitaine, where she caught my father's eye. Papa had not offered her marriage, but he had offered her honor, as well as a place beside him on the dais in the great hall, and a place in his bed. She had even been kind to us, making my sister a doll with yarn for hair, dressed in the same silk that had been used to make her own gown. Petra loved that doll. She slept with it still.

So I thought at first that my eyes were dazzled by the morning light. Surely it was another woman who took Theobold's hand, and lay down with him among the barley grasses, laughing.

I crept closer, the sound of the wind covering my approach. I lay less than ten feet from them, and as I listened, I heard Madeline's high, sweet laughter, and her voice, speaking low, her words lost to the wind. I crawled on my knees and hands, heedless of my good green gown.

I crouched, so close that I might have cast a stone at them. But the high barley grass, which came almost to my shoulders when I stood, hid me well. They did not see me. I froze where I was, my father's strictures coming back to me. He reminded me that to sit in the seat of power is to be constantly betrayed, but I had never known such a thing for myself. That day, for the first time, I saw what betrayal was. I felt it in the pain above my heart.

Even then, I hoped that they had simply fallen. But when I came close enough to peer at them through the waving grasses, I saw that there was no sprained ankle, no twisted knee, nor scraped shin between them. They kissed, as I had seen Madeline kiss my father.

Madeline's long blond hair slipped from her braids, falling about her shoulders in a golden mass that lay against the green of the barley like sunlight. She took her lover into her arms with no thought for my father, or for any of us.

When my mother died, I learned that pain was not something I could run from, something that I might defeat by hiding. Now, as I watched the woman I loved betray my father, my sister, and myself, pain came, and I breathed it in like a fire that burned my lungs.

I sat in silence, the wind and the barley brushing against my face and over my hair. I heard Madeline moan. Instead of pushing Theobold away, Madeline clutched him closer. Papa would not have this woman under his roof, in his bed, once he knew what she had done.

Her moans reached a crescendo, as the fife and tabor do in music, and then she screamed. Theobold covered her mouth with his hand, and he groaned, shuddering over her. Then they both lay still, clutching each other and gasping.

My heart pounded, my breath came short, and my hands shook. Nausea rose in me, for I caught the scent of something between them, a musky scent that made me gag. I raised both hands over my mouth, until I was certain I would not be sick.

I moved slowly when the wind moved the barley, so that Madeline and her lover did not hear my passing. They thought, no doubt, that the wind simply sounded strong so close by the sea. I slipped away, bits of grass clinging to my skirt and to my hair. I kept my head below the barley, careful to stay low even when they no longer would have been able to see me.

When I had left the fields and entered the copse of maple and birch trees by the road, I ran toward the keep, the wind from the sea at my back. My lacerated heart pounded, and I gasped for breath, but I did not slow or stop. The hunting lodge at Talmont was no great seat, but we had stone walls around it instead of wood. My family had held that keep for ten generations. I felt as if Talmont were opening its stone arms to protect me as I flew through the castle gates. My father's men-at-arms knew me at once and let me pass.

Once I entered the haven of Talmont's walls, I stopped running. Alix was forever telling me that young ladies did not race the wind, nor did they pant like dogs. I tried to release my pain and anger with my outgoing breath, but I failed. My father hoped to teach me to control my emotions, both the good and the bad. I was not sure I would ever learn.

I turned my mind from what I had seen. My veil was lost; the swatch of linen had fallen away when I had run. My fillet was still in place, a gold circlet that bore the crest of Aquitaine carved into its shining brightness. The gold caught the warmth of the sun and held it against my temples. The fillet was too large for me, and hung too low, almost reaching my eyes, but I was stubborn and wore it anyway. Once, it had been my mother's.

I straightened my gown, pulling away the bits of grass that clung to it. The cloth was not stained as I had feared. Gold threads shot through the green of my favorite dress, catching the light of the sun. The gold matched the bronze fastenings of the leather belt at my waist. Emerald green brought out the green in my eyes, making them shine like jewels better than any other color could.

My breathing even, my dress smooth, I stepped into the darkness of my father's hall. Alix had been looking for me, but she had been too frightened to tell anyone I was missing. Her pale blue eyes were filled with tears. My headstrong ways always caused her pain and I was sorry for it, but I could not help it. I was as I was born to be. I was myself.

I went to Alix where she stood by the fire. Her thin blond hair was falling down from her linen coif. I kissed her, drawing her away from the smoking flames.

I let her hold me as I took in the sweet smell of warm bread and honey on her skin. Though she did not bake herself, she was always in the kitchen, fetching out bread and honey for me. They were her favorite foods, and she was sure that if I would only eat enough of them, I would grow plump and content, and settle down in the women's solar with my embroidery for the rest of my life.

“Where were you, my lady?”

I met Alix's eyes, as serious as a bishop in church on Sunday. “I was at prayer.”

I saw her disbelief, but I did not waste the time it would have taken to come up with a better lie.

“I am going in to see Papa,” I said.

I had run here to tell him my news, and as I reached the hall, I had seen that it was the appointed hour for our daily time together. The same time each day, my father met with me, unless he was on a hunt or riding to war.

At the mention of Papa, Alix smiled, and the sight of her smile warmed my heart. Only she had seen the weak side of me, the girl that had wept at my mother's and brother's deaths. The part of me that I had buried with them beneath the stone of Talmont's chapel floor.

I pressed her hand, then turned to climb the wooden stairs that led to my father's room.

My father, Duke William X of Aquitaine, Count of Poitou, was waiting for me, a scroll of vellum in his hand. Though Papa had clerks to do his writing, he was unique among noblemen in that he could read and write in Latin, as well as in our langue d'oc. My father's eyes were light blue, lighter than the blue of the sky on a sunny day. He was a tall man, and slender in his blue gown, which fell in soft folds past his knees, caught by a bronze-studded belt at his waist. His sandy hair fell over his forehead, but was not long enough to hide his eyes. Even at the age of thirty-two, he wore it short always, for he was often at war.

Papa rose when I entered the room, and offered his hand. I took it, and he drew me close; it was he who kissed me.

His clerk Baldwin had been standing with him, ready with the next scroll of vellum to be signed. Though a priest, the only kind of man that could read or write in Christendom, Baldwin served my father first, and the Church second. He had been raised in my father's household since he was a boy.

Baldwin bowed low in his black cassock, his blue eyes smiling. He was not yet thirty, but already his mouse brown hair had thinned, and a paunch had started above the low-slung belt of his rosary. When Baldwin saw me enter, after making the proper gestures of respect, he left us alone. He knew that there would be no more business done until my father called for him. Our time alone was sacred.

I faced my father with no one else between us.

“Daughter, how fare you this day?”

“Well, Papa.”

I kissed him, the knowledge of all I must say heavy on my heart. “Papa, I have news. News that cannot wait.”

“Indeed?”

He took his chair once more, and I sat beside him on a low stool brought close for the purpose. My father's dog, Gawain, came to sit at his knee, and whined. Papa petted the great wolf hound absently. I watched the creature, wary of it, but it came no closer. It was obedient to my father, as I was, when I could bring myself to be obedient to anyone.

I told him what I had seen in the barley field. I managed to keep my voice even; it shook only once. My father listened to my story, his face unreadable. I saw a flicker of pain behind his eyes, but that was all. His face was a study in stillness.

“Will you put her away?” I asked him.

His face opened a little, just enough to smile at me. “No, Alienor. I will not.”