To Be Queen (23 page)

“And will you fight at our side, as the Amazons of old?” Conrad asked, his blue eyes sparkling with mirth.

I had opened my mouth to respond to his casual jest when Louis reached over and took my gloved hand from Conrad's. “No, my brother king. She will not.”

Louis' face was drawn and pale, almost gray with horror at the contours of my legs revealed beneath the leggings and the split skirt of my gown. He was furious that my women and I had made such a display of ourselves. He threw his own cloak over me, and Conrad saw that it would be best to let the matter rest.

“Come into my keep, brother,” he said in his flawless French. “Let us offer you a feast, for you have had a long journey, and we have farther still to go.”

Louis nodded to the German emperor, but did not answer. We followed Conrad, our mounts trailing behind him, Louis' hand clutching mine. It was awkward to ride with our two horses side by side, but Louis would not let go of me.

Once we were in our adjoining rooms inside Conrad's keep, Louis would not leave me alone and in peace until I had stripped off the gown and leggings, and replaced them with a modest gown of cloth of gold. He left me then to go to his evening prayers, and I wondered what else this journey might hold, and if I would have the patience to bear my husband's constant company until we reached Jerusalem.

Conrad feasted us with a great banquet of roasted boar and vast wooden kegs of local beer. I sipped at it only, for I found the concoction foul, but my barons and Louis' men drank deep, their laughter reverberating off the stone walls of Conrad's great hall. Only Brother Francis sat alone in the midst of the Germans with a frown on his face.

I retired with my ladies as soon as it was polite to do so, for Louis still glowered at me. The Emperor Conrad's attentions were too solicitous, and I left knowing that though Louis was jealous, he would not come to my bed that night. But then, he never did.

I had brought a full retinue of ladies on Crusade with me, and most of them slept in the room that led into mine. Amaria saw them bedded down, though we both knew that they would not stay there. They, too, were happy to be away from the Parisian court, where prying eyes held them always under scrutiny. Here, they could meet their lovers unencumbered. While on the journey to Jerusalem, they could enjoy themselves. I envied them that.

Amaria saw my restlessness, and without a word, she handed me a long, heavy traveling cloak of wool. The cloak might have been worn by any woman, and was plain, with no embroidered border; no one who saw it would ever suspect that it hid the queen.

Amaria and I kept to the shadows and walked in silence through the torchlit keep. She made it her business to know all the outer doors and secret passages of any castle we slept in, for she trusted no one, and always wanted to see to it that I had a method of escape in case of fire or war. Her caution had never been necessary, but now we made use of her intelligence, climbing to the ramparts without calling a man-at-arms to accompany us. Bardonne alone followed us, moving with great silence and stealth for so large a man. He spoke not a word, but simply kept to the shadows as we did.

On the ramparts of Conrad's castle, I could see the village below made of stone huts, all outlined by the half-moon that rose above our heads. The town's cathedral rose on the next hill, and moonlight softened the rounded edges of the Romanesque basilica. The sight reminded me of my father's cathedral in Poitiers, and for one long, piercing moment, the view of that foreign church made me long for home.

“Your thoughts are far from here.”

I knew that voice well, though it had been years since we had spoken alone.

“My mind was at home, in Poitiers,” I said.

Bardonne stepped between us as Geoffrey of Rancon emerged from the shadows of the castle wall. Conrad's men-at-arms, posted on the ramparts to watch the grounds below, saw us talking, and assumed no doubt that I was his lady love, and that this meeting had been prearranged. They gave us a wide berth, for which I was grateful; they did not recognize me.

I raised one hand. “It is all right, Bardonne. He may pass.”

My man stepped back, but kept his hand on his short sword. He wore one not for formal battle; he had been born little more than a peasant and did not fight as an archer or on horseback. But hand to hand, in close combat, Bardonne had no equal. To guard my life was his only duty, besides spying among my husband's men-at-arms, and he took his duty seriously.

Amaria frowned deeply, but when Bardonne stepped back, she did the same. Both she and my man-at-arms would hear every word we spoke, but we kept our voices low, to give ourselves the illusion of privacy.

“The people of Aquitaine and Poitou miss you,” Geoffrey said.

I smiled at him, for that was nonsense. I had been to see my uncle de Faye for Christ's Mass the year before, and had celebrated in my own hall among my own people. It was Rancon who missed me. Though he had served me faithfully, he had done it from afar. I had rarely seen him in the years of my marriage to Louis. The time he spent near us on our wedding day, and our wedding night, was all he could bear.

I saw the longing in Rancon's eyes and found that it mirrored my own. For the first time in my life, I wondered what might have been had I not married the King of France.

I dismissed such thoughts as folly. But I had been miserable with Louis for so long, and Geoffrey of Rancon stood close, his head bent low over mine. I took in the spicy sweet scent of his skin, and remembered how his hands had felt on my body so many years ago. I took one step back. Rancon was a man of honor and did not follow me, though his eyes were hot with desire.

“You would have made a fine Amazon, my lady.”

My smile was wry. “My husband did not think so.”

“Then he is a fool.”

I pressed my hand to his arm to silence him and looked over my shoulder, in case any of the Emperor Conrad's men might be listening. They stood more than ten feet away, staring out into the night over the castle walls.

I met Rancon's eyes. “Do not take foolish chances.”

“I would do more, for your sake.”

He bent low, and took my hand in his, pressing his lips to my fingertips. For one heady moment, I thought he might turn my hand over and press his lips to my palm, but he did not. He let my hand fall and took a step back from me.

“My lady, I have not forgotten the vow I made you in your father's keep.”

He did not speak of his oath of fealty, but of the promise he had made me while we stood alone in the dark, in the shadow of my father's curved staircase. I had been fourteen when he swore that there would come a night when he would not let me go. Years had passed since then; I had borne a child and married a man I did not love since those words were spoken. But still, I remembered.

“My lady, I always keep my word.”

Rancon faded into the shadows. I inhaled deeply of the night air, for my breath had turned shallow at his nearness. I pressed one hand against the cold stone of the castle rampart. Amaria took that hand then, and drew it into her own.

“We must go in, my lady. You must sleep. The road ahead is long.”

Her steady blue eyes met mine without judgment or rancor. I let Amaria lead me back into the keep. Bardonne followed us in silence. Amaria put me to bed with no more words between us, but as I lay down, she pressed a kiss to my forehead, almost as my mother might have done, had she been there. She took a liberty, but I did not rebuke her. For years she had been my friend as well as my lady-in-waiting. Amaria knew me and loved me for myself, as few others ever would.

I lay back on my bolster, but I did not sleep. The light from the braziers crept up the hangings of the bed, and raised shadows on the tapestries that lined the walls. I watched the shadows dance. At dawn, we would take to the road again, this time with Conrad and his Germans beside us. Baron Rancon would carry my husband's standard. I would treat him as a stranger, as I had done for years already, as in the sight of my husband, I always must.

The good weather did not last as we traveled deeper into Germany. The rains began outside Metz and stalked our path as we rode on horseback from one principality to the next. We were five months on the road from St.-Denis to Constantinople, and as we moved, the company of our troops grew until our ranks swelled to more than twenty-five thousand fighting men, their ladies, and their servants.

Most of the baggage was sent ahead by river at the city of Regensburg, so that our army, as large as it had become, might move faster. Conrad continued to host us at each castle he controlled, but most of the horde of crusaders remained in their own tents. I was relieved when we left Germany, and my women and I had our own tent raised along the roadside. As charming a host as Conrad was, I was happy to be queen in my own hall, even if my hall was made of waterproofed leather trimmed in silk.

Late in the month of September, we were well away from Conrad's territories and had entered the outskirts of the empire of Byzantium. The banner of Aquitaine flew above the tent I slept in, as it flew with the fleur-de-lys of France over the large tent that passed for Louis' great hall. Though many Parisians had traveled with us, Louis' hall became my own, for I had my own barons and ladies from Poitou and Aquitaine traveling with me.

On the first night we camped outside the city of Sofia in Bulgaria, I spoke with my troubadours before the feast. We had experienced no hardship or warfare along the path of our Crusade thus far, so there was much to celebrate. Like all Poitevins, I was always willing to celebrate being alive, so I called my troubadours to me, and instructed them to sing that night old songs my father and grandfather had written, as well as one of my own.

As the fruit was being served, one troubadour after another stood to sing. Louis glowered at this break in Parisian formality, but we were not in Paris now. This was a new country. We might carry the Court of Love into the East, and with it all the music that I had known in my childhood.

My barons cheered after every song, for they knew each of them well, as I did. Even some of the Parisians who traveled with us listened with attention, as they never would have done if Abbot Suger or Bernard of Clairvaux had been there, watching them.

Brother Francis frowned as if he would bring down thunder and lightning on all our heads. Brother Matthew and Father Gilbert, two more priests that Louis had brought to pray for him in Jerusalem, listened to the music of my homeland in stunned silence, as if they had never heard songs of love before. They sat together at a lower table, blinking like bovines that had just been struck between the eyes.

The German emperor Conrad applauded my troubadours as loudly as my own people did, and offered them sacks of silver discreetly in payment for their talent. I had paid them all beforehand, but I smiled as Bertrand and his lute player took the German's money, scraping before Conrad as if he were their lord.

The night ended early, for we had a few days' march still to the city of Adrianople, the last city that would rise in our path before we would come to Constantinople. All the barons and their ladies, save for a few of the Parisians and Louis' favorite confessor, Brother Francis, left my husband's tents with smiles on their faces. For the first time since I had been made Queen of France, my husband's people had embraced the Court of Love, as I had always longed for them to do. That first taste of cultural victory left me hungry for more.

I had thought to try to tempt Louis to my bed, but as I looked upon his sour, pinched expression, I simply kissed his cheek and bade him a good night. I would sleep with the sound of my grandfather's music still in my ears. I would savor the joy that came with biding among my own barons and among the Germans, who seemed to love music as much as we did.