To Be Queen (37 page)

My mouth opened under his, and I felt his triumph as he shifted his body closer to mine, drawing me against the hard length of his chest and thighs. His sword belt dug into my waist; this thrilled me more, as his tongue plundered my mouth. I could taste all his past conquests, and all his conquests to come.

“Dear God,” I said. “This is folly.”

Henry laughed low, the sound running over my skin like hands. He caressed my hair, while his other hand held me fast against him. He did not let me pull away.

“It is the sanest thing I've ever done.”

“You must let me go.”

“Must I?”

I was a beautiful woman, and I knew it. But under Henry's gaze, under his hands, I became a different woman altogether, a pliant woman, a woman who did nothing but want. I was always that woman as long as Henry was touching me.

“Wear green tonight,” he said. “Green to match your eyes.”

“Why would I do that?”

He smiled, his mouth lowering so that it hovered only an inch above my own. His breath was warm, and I sagged against him, my hands on his chest, holding him back from what we both wanted.

“Let us not lie to each other, or to ourselves, Eleanor.”

He did not speak my name as Raymond had. But the name I had borne for Louis for so many years sounded different on his lips. It was a new name, just as I was a new woman, simply because he had touched me.

Henry stepped away from me.

My heart pounded from his nearness, raced with my desire for him, but my mind was clear. I was still myself with him, but better. Perhaps it was possible for a man to teach a woman to know herself. Before that day, I would have said such a thing was not possible.

“I will see you in the hall,” he said. “Wear green for me.”

“I will not.”

Henry smiled. The shadows of the keep had begun to creep up from the ground, filling the walled garden with the beginning of night. Those shadows played over his face, but they could do nothing to dim the red gold of his hair, or the knowledge in his smile.

“You will.”

He was gone then, and I was left alone to catch my breath. I had never seen such a man, not in all my travels, not in all my years upon the earth. I noticed then that it was still raining. I had forgotten the weather while Henry was with me.

My hood had fallen when he kissed me, and now my hair was as wet as my shoes. My gown was damp where he had touched me, and the fur on my cloak was matted with the rain.

Amaria came to me then, and led me indoors by the hand. She took me to my rooms the long way, by the hidden corridor that led to my bedchamber. My ladies still waited for me in my sitting room. Seeing that I was in no condition to greet them, Amaria called for my bathwater to be brought into my bedroom, and sent my ladies away.

I stood alone, by my bedroom's only window, and looked unseeing into the dark. Night had almost fallen, but the gray of Paris no longer chilled me as it had an hour before. Now that gray made me think of Henry, and of the color of his eyes. I knew I was far gone, for I could still taste him, and the warm velvet of his tongue.

Though this was true, I did not feel mad, as I had felt with Raymond. This was something new, some new game that Henry had started. Now, for the few days he lingered here, it was for me to play it out.

I was late to the feast, as my hair was still damp from the rain. It took time to dry it out before the fire. Instead of braiding it once more, Amaria drew the bronze strands up into a simpler style, and placed the coronet of Aquitaine over it. I wore no veil, which I knew would infuriate the Parisians, but I was damned in their eyes already.

When I came into the hall, Louis did not chide me for my lateness. Instead, he rose from his chair, forcing everyone at the high table to follow suit. The people sitting below the dais rose as well, so that everyone's eyes were on me.

“What a lovely gown, Eleanor. You are a vision, as always.”

I blinked, for though he loved me, my husband rarely offered me compliments anymore. “Thank you, Louis.”

The king drew my chair out from the table before a footman could step forward and do it for him. I accepted the wine he offered me, as well as the squab. Everyone else sat when Louis did, and as the king began to eat, everyone else ate as well.

Petra caught my eye from where she sat at Louis' left hand. I winked at her, and she almost laughed, choking on a sip of wine. She thought to sleep in my room that night, but after my time with Henry in the garden, I would be too restless. I would send word by Amaria that Petra might sleep in the nursery with the girls. She loved my daughters, almost as much as she loved her own. Often I wished I had her easy way with them. They loved me, but as queen, I was set apart. As young as they were, both Marie and Alix knew it.

The musicians played quietly in the gallery above our heads. I could hear it over the sound of the talk that night, and I found the lute and fife soothing. I sipped my wine, and ate my spiced venison, raising my eyes only then from the trencher Louis and I shared. I should not have done it, for I found Henry down the table, staring at me.

My color rose, as if I were a young girl or an innocent. No one around us seemed to notice, save for Henry's father, Geoffrey, who glowered at me. No doubt he did not want his young pup of a son running after a married woman. Or perhaps he simply feared to start a war with my husband before Henry was even confirmed in his duchy. Whatever the reason, Geoffrey of Anjou was not fooled by my downcast eyes. He shifted on his bench. His eyes did not leave me, nor did his son's.

I looked up at last and met Henry's gaze. He smiled at me, as if we knew a secret. There was something about him that warmed me, even from that distance. I gave up all pretense at modesty, and smiled back at him.

Triumph lit his eyes, as it had in that rainy garden. He raised his glass to me, a gesture that warmed me almost as much as his touch had. I turned from him then, and ate my food without tasting it. Louis offered a bit of seasoned pork, which I took but did not touch.

I drank my wine, and kept my own counsel until the fruit was brought out and the minstrels came down from their gallery for the dancing.

The tables were taken up on the lower floor, and the rushes strewn with thyme and rosemary. The scent of those herbs rose from the ground below the dais. I breathed in those mingled scents, as well as the smell of woodsmoke, and took in the light of the evening fires. Lamps burned, hanging from chains above the dance floor. All around that stone hall, the light worked to chase away the shadows, but darkness lined the walls. As I watched, lovers paired off, some to the dancing and others to the outer darkness. For the first time in years, since I was a young girl at home safe in my father's court, I wished I might be one of them.

Henry was standing by me then, bowing so low that I thought he might stoop to kneel. He did not address me but kept his eyes on Louis.

“My lord king, may I have the honor of a dance with your queen?”

Louis smiled fondly. It never crossed his mind that this man, this young conqueror, would have any darker motive but to take my hand.

Henry did not speak to me, but led me by the hand into the motion of the dancers. All eyes were on us, though I would soon be free and no longer wear a crown. Though Louis was casting me aside and everyone knew it, that night, I was still queen.

I tossed my head, so that my hair fell over one shoulder in a bronze cascade. It had begun to come unraveled from the simple style Amaria had put it in. As it fell undone beneath my coronet, I found I did not care. The Parisians looked scandalized, but so they did even when I knelt in church.

“You wore green,” Henry said finally, his hand over mine.

We began to move in the elaborate pattern of the dance. I did not have to wait a moment or hesitate to discover which way he intended to move, as I had often done with so many other men. Our bodies moved together without thought, as if we had been born to it.

“Did I?” I asked. “My women dress me. I rarely think to look at their choices, for all my gowns are as fine as the rest.”

He laughed low, so that no one else could hear him. He drew me close in the dance, and leaned as if to bow to me, his lips coming close to my ear. “Liar.”

I laughed then, all pretense at coolness fled. Henry laughed with me, and all in Louis' court turned to look at us, Geoffrey of Anjou included.

Only Louis did not look down from his dais, for Brother Matthew sat with him. Louis' new confessor had taken my place at table. My husband's fair golden head was bent, listening to all his churchman said. The rest of the court saw Henry and me together, but Louis never did.

Then the dance turned me away, my back to the dais, so that I was moving among the courtiers once more. Louis fell away from me like a dream at morning.

I took in the sight of Henry, standing by my side in his clothes of silk. He had worn wool in the garden that afternoon, a tunic and hose made for riding, or for war. He wore silk now as a king might, but casually, as if he knew his own worth.

As the dance ended, I found myself basking in the light of his eyes. Here, then, was a man to meet my fire. Here at last was a man to match my strength. What a shame that he was so young, and that I was married already.

Henry returned me to the dais, and bent over my hand. He spoke low, as if offering his fealty, but his voice was not subservient. “I will come to you tonight. Look for me.”

He left me gasping at his audacity. I would have laughed, but I had no breath. Louis nodded to me, and I sat once more at his side. I did not stir from the dais again that night.

Before long, Henry disappeared, but his father stayed, glowering at me all the while. I had made an enemy there. Geoffrey of Anjou clearly did not want the likes of me near his son.

But I could have told him, had he had the courage to ask, that I had not chosen Henry. Henry had chosen me. Surely even Geoffrey of Anjou knew the difference.

 

 

ONCE LOCKED SAFE IN MY ROOMS, ALL MY WOMEN DISMISSED but for Amaria, I knew that Henry could not come to me there in my husband's keep. Still, I hoped for him, as a peasant farmer hopes for rain after months of drought. I called myself a fool, but I sat waiting, a goblet of wine in my hand, my eyes and ears turned toward the door.

There came a scratching at the hidden door behind the tapestry beside my bed. Amaria and I had used that passage earlier in the day to slip past my women. As far as I knew, no one but Louis, Amaria, and I knew of its existence.

At the sound of that scratching, Amaria was on her feet in an instant, her blade out. I rose more slowly, running my hand through my hair. My heart began to pound, as it had when I ran across my father's fields as a girl. It was Henry, and I knew it. He must have followed us earlier, without being seen.

I laid my hand on Amaria's arm, and went to open the door. Henry stood in the dark of the hidden corridor, a lamp in one hand, and a scroll in the other. Perhaps he had written me love poetry, and came now to read it to me. The thought, unlikely as it was, made me laugh as I stepped back from the doorway and let him in.

“My lord duke. You are welcome to this place.”

“No duke yet, my lady. That is still for your husband to say, come the morrow.”

He spoke of the ceremony that would confirm his position, but we both knew, as all the court did, that such a ceremony was a formality only. He had won his mother's lands back by force of arms. Louis would not stand in his way.

Amaria frowned, closing and locking the door behind him, hiding it once more behind the tapestry of Saint Paul at prayer. Though she frowned, her blade was sheathed and hidden in her sleeve already.

“You may leave us,” I told her. “I will send for you, if we have need.”

Amaria transferred her glower to me, but left through the front door, to take up her post as guard in my audience chamber. My sitting room would be cold that time of night. She wrapped herself in furs before she left me.

I watched Henry where he stood by my mahogany table. Its top was polished to a high sheen, and gleamed in the light of the candles I had set by. Henry put his lamp down, and laid the scroll next to it.

He shrugged off his concealing cloak, and I had to master myself to keep from breathing in too sharply. He was not conventionally beautiful. He had not Louis' grace, soft features, or golden hair. But Henry of Normandy was compelling. Every catlike move he made called to me. There, alone in my rooms, he reminded me of a great lion turned loose among common men. I had never known anyone like him.