To Be Queen (24 page)

From that evening outside the town of Sofia, my troubadours sang, and our lords and ladies listened. The songs of my family were carried deep into the East, right up to the gates of Adrianople, and to Constantinople itself. It seemed to me that my grandfather lived again whenever his music was played.

As we rode closer and closer to the gates of the capital of Byzantium, the land rose gently beneath Melusina's hooves, as if the country offered a greeting to me and mine. The windswept plains outside Constantinople had not changed in a thousand years. I almost expected to see the wild men of Herodotus riding down upon us as we came closer and closer to the great city's gates. Our fighting men surrounded us and became ever more vigilant. At any moment, the Turks might attack us, even in Byzantium itself, and strike to cut us down. Those Turks, with whom we were at war, were the heirs of the ancient tribesmen who had terrorized that land centuries before.

The danger in the air around us, the spiced heat that rose from the ground even in the autumn, filled my heart with joy. The hills were green and brown with the ash and myrtle trees that grew along the Lycus River leading into Constantinople.

I rode Melusina among my own barons, as each vied with the others for precedence beside me. Louis rode far behind me, and I savored the first taste of freedom I had known since my father's death. The first sip of that nectar was sweet.

Each step on the road to Byzantium left me wanting more.

 

 

THE CITY OF CONSTANTINOPLE ROSE ON THE HORIZON LIKE A great curved beast. Even from a distance of five miles, the buildings and domes, the towers, and the great walls could be seen as we approached on horseback. Melusina seemed to step more lively, and the Parisians fell silent. Even in Germany, we had not seen a city as great as this. The walls and ramparts towered above us as we approached, blocking out the sun. The city's huge wooden gates bound in worked iron opened before us, and we stepped into another world.

The scent of spices was the first thing that struck me as Melusina carried me into the city, with Louis beside me. The smell of cinnamon and nutmeg rode on the air, and the scent of pepper and salt. The Byzantine emperor Manuel's people cast flowers at our horses' feet, blooms of such strange and vivid colors, orange, purple, and mauve.

Constantinople spanned the great water of the strait of Bosporus as a corridor might bridge the gap between a woman's solar and her bedroom. The city was as dirty as Paris, but I forgot the dirt at once as I craned my neck to look upon the heights of those buildings. Constantinople's towers and domes gleamed gold and white against the landscape, a jewel of gold and pearl set against a backdrop of ochre.

My ladies fell silent behind me as Louis and I entered the city. None of us had ever seen a place so large, or so grand. Rome itself could not possibly rival it. Constantinople was a city apart.

The towers shone like jewels in the late-morning sun. The great dome of Hagia Sophia beckoned to me, cupped like a woman's hand over a flame. Its elegant, graceful lines spoke of a distant past, when the Empress Theodora had ruled at the side of her Justinian.

The buildings of Constantinople were all made of stone. Different-colored marbles caught the light as we rode past, framing the wide cobbled street. Refuse flowed in neat rivers into drains along the edge of the road. In Paris, dirty water flowed into channels carved in the center of the streets, so that people and horses alike were forced to walk through the filth. I breathed deep, and though the scent of camel dung mixed with the scent of flowers and cinnamon, I did not catch the stink of human refuse as I had throughout Europe.

At the sight of the marbled buildings and the murmuring fountains, the Parisians drew close together, muttering and anxious. Brother Francis brought his mule as close as he could to Louis' mount, as if the presence of his king might protect him from the exotic landscape, an elegance so different from anything Paris had to offer. Even as Louis' people shrank from all they saw, I felt my spirit open like a flower under the sun after a winter of snow and ice.

Though I loved the Aquitaine all my life, with its deep green forests and its rolling hills, I loved the East as much from the first moment the towers of Constantinople rose around me. Here at last was evidence of the achievement mankind was capable of, the beauty of the mind of man that my father had always spoken of when he taught me of the Romans and the Greeks. Here was a city that housed the remnants of the ancient world. I took in the sight of that beauty, and it fed my soul.

I looked to Louis, whose horse walked close beside mine, and I saw that he knew nothing of what I felt. His eyes were cast forward. He looked neither right nor left, but followed his own standard deeper into the most beautiful city on earth. No thoughts of ancient Rome or Athens entered his mind; I could see that from the look on his face. I turned away from Louis then, and cast my own eyes back to the wonders around me. We did not plan to stay more than two weeks in this place, so I would drink in all the beauty that I could.

Constantinople's buildings were close together, built one on top of the other, as the buildings were in Paris. But this city was much larger than Paris could ever be, hemmed in as it was on its small island in the middle of the Seine. As we moved deeper into Constantinople on horseback, my husband's troops of twenty-five thousand men and all my ladies with our baggage train were dwarfed by the countless people and the endless streets that fanned out around us in a great arc off the wide road we traveled on.

We came to the Lycus River at the center of the city. The river was surrounded on all sides by buildings six stories tall. My ladies and I were brought down from our horses by imperial slaves. These slaves, dressed in thin silk robes over linen trousers, lifted us down from our mounts.

I blinked, shocked to be handled by a servant without permission, but the man in his fine jeweled silk touched me without meeting my eyes. His hands were indifferent on my waist, as if I were a vase that his lord had asked him to set on a table. My ladies tittered together, for these slaves were clearly chosen for their beauty as well as for their strength.

Later that evening, I was told that these were not men at all but eunuchs, gelded half men who had been trained to guard the empress with their lives. My own men-at-arms were separated from me and my ladies by these towering hulks, but there was no time to question this arrangement, for we were handed at once into flowered litters made of fragrant cedar wood stained dark brown. These litters were carved with flying beasts, dragons with sapphires and rubies inlaid for their gleaming eyes.

We followed the path of the river to the Bosporus, the strait that separated one section of the vast city from the other. This water divided Europe from Asia, and the imperial palace from the rest of Constantinople itself. Once we reached the edge of the Bosporus, we were handed by more slaves into wooden barges with canopies of silk to block the sun. These canopies were covered with fragrant, jewel-toned flowers of vermilion, lapis, and saffron. The peasants of Constantinople lined the quayside and waved to us and cheered as we set off across the water to the imperial palace. My women were silent until we were on solid ground again, clutching one another's hands, for none of them could swim.

Nor could I, but I was thrilled by the new world that had sprung up around me; it never entered my mind to be afraid.

My ladies and I had been separated from Louis and his Parisians as well as my own lords from Poitou and Aquitaine. But as our barges reached the palace on the other side of the strait, I saw that the men had crossed the Bosporus in barges of their own. My ladies climbed onto dry land one by one. When I rose to step out of the barge, the Baron Rancon was there beside me, offering his hand. He helped me onto the marble quay within the inner walls of the palace.

“My lady queen.”

“Thank you, my lord.”

I addressed him formally, keeping my tone light. All around us my ladies stood staring. Never before had he singled me out for attention in public.

My husband came to stand beside us then, and Baron Rancon dropped my hand. Louis stood close but did not touch me, his eyes trained on the high stone walls around us. The water gate closed behind us, a heavy wooden barrier edged and enforced with bands of iron.

For the first time since entering Constantinople, I felt a chill as those great gates were sealed shut. Our fighting men and most of our baggage were left outside. I later discovered that our people were given lodgings in the city and that our baggage was brought into the palace by a separate gate. But in that moment, behind those gates of iron and wood, I wondered if we would as easily find our way back out again.

I pushed this thought from my mind almost as soon as I had it. Louis met my eyes, and smiled. “I have been told that the gentlemen are housed separately. I am off to greet the Emperor Manuel, but I will see you at this night's feast.” Louis kissed my cheek as a brother might, before the Emperor Manuel's attendants led him and our men away. Only Baron Rancon lingered, his eyes on me. My safety was his personal trust. He did not like to leave it to another.

I had heard on the road to Byzantium that in the palace at Constantinople men and women lived separate lives, save for their daily meetings in the great hall, and for love play. There would be little of the latter with Louis, and while I would rather have gone to see the Emperor Manuel for myself, I soon relaxed in the presence of my own ladies. The Empress Eirene did not come to greet me, but sent her head woman, Esmeralda, to see to my comfort. My ladies and I were led through a different entrance from the one the men had taken into the depths of the palace.

The interior walls rose around us, but light still shone through the latticework that covered the windows. The outer walls were strong for defense, but were set far back from the living quarters of the palace. Sunlight came into the rooms through windows that stretched from floor to ceiling. The painted white latticework kept out the direct heat of the sun, so that even in that climate, the rooms were never too warm.

My ladies and I were taken into the women's quarters. In the East, women not only led separate lives from men but were cut off completely in their own section of the palace. I did not care for this arrangement. But this city was only one stop on our road to Jerusalem. We would leave in two weeks' time, and take the long journey to Antioch to meet my uncle Raymond. Until then, I would enjoy the beauties that surrounded me, and overlook the flaws of Byzantium.

The rooms that the Empress Eirene had set aside for my use were the most elaborate I had ever seen. It was a day for firsts, for I had never before seen entire rooms laid out in marble: floors, walls, and ceilings. The beams of the high ceilings were inlaid cypress wood carved in swirls, images that brought to mind the waves of the ocean. Marble columns rose throughout the sunlit rooms, each in different shades of rose and cream, each column gilded at the top in Corinthian splendor. Low divans lay against the walls, and were scattered throughout the room, that one might sit in comfort the moment one thought to rest. These were carved from rich mahogany and covered with cushions of silk and damask in shades of rose, mauve, cream, and gold.

The effect these rooms had on the body and the spirit was immediately soothing. I felt the tension leave my shoulders for the first time since coming down off my horse in the hands of that palace eunuch. As Amaria and I led Priscilla and the rest of my ladies into these rooms, palace women scurried like mice to get out of our way, their faces veiled like Saracens. One of the Parisians crossed herself when she saw them. Amaria met my eyes. She would send word to Bardonne to find a quick and secret way out of this palace. I would not rest easy under the roof of a man who kept his women always veiled.

I still did not see the empress, but her veiled women were everywhere, offering me sweetmeats, hazelnuts braised in honey, and candied dates and figs. I took one of each for politeness' sake, and sent the rest among my women. After I had eaten and taken a glass of watered wine from Cyprus, the empress' ladies brought me into the baths.

The four deep pools lay in the shape of flower petals, large teardrops curving off from the center of the room. These bathing pools were sunk into the marble floor, as a pond or a lake might be at home. But this was no forest pool of brackish water. The empress' baths were man-made lakes lined with pink and cream marble. Beneath the floor of each, furnaces were stoked day and night, so that the water in those pools would stay heated, that the women of the palace might bathe any time they desired.

Great marble columns rose among the curves of these bathing pools, gilded as the columns in the outer rooms were.

The empress' women offered me a bath, and I accepted. The ladies of the palace all bathed in long linen shifts so sheer that they might as well have worn nothing. I would send Amaria to the bazaar to buy such material for my own shifts. No doubt the cloth would be too thin for warmth in Paris, but in the Aquitaine, I might wear that beautiful cloth beneath my gowns in summer.

Once more I thought of what my life might be like if I were to leave Louis, and live among my own people in the Aquitaine. I might take one of my own barons to my bed, and wear such a shift for him. Baron Rancon came to mind, and I almost lost my breath. The memory of his hands on my body came back to me as if he had touched me only yesterday, and not many years ago, when I was still a green girl. I had forgotten him, and his touch; I had made myself forget. But the scent of the East, with its spices and its heat, made me remember the heat he had drawn from me that night in my father's keep. My body had never forgotten him. As if I were a young girl again, my skin flushed pink with the knowledge that I would see him at that night's feast.