The Queen's Pawn (14 page)

I swallowed my anger as well as my pride, and I ate the morsel, chewing carefully so as not to choke. Henry watched every motion of my mouth. My hands felt heavy, and the hall felt warmer than it was.

I swallowed the meat and took a sip of my wine, which had been set out too long and had begun to sour. At Windsor, where Eleanor did not rule, the English court thought little of these things. Marie Helene was careful of the wine that was brought into my rooms, but when I sat at the high table at the king’s court, I had to take what came.

After I finished the bite of venison, I looked at the king, once more in control of myself, my gaze mild.

I passed his test, whatever it was, for he smiled at me.

“The dogs are thriving, Alais.”

“I am glad to hear it.”

“They seemed to take to you. I wonder if you might visit them again with me.”

“Of course, Your Majesty If you wish it.”

Though Eleanor was still speaking with the young lord beside her, she was looking at me.

“Do not concern yourself with Eleanor,” the king said. He saw where my gaze was tending.

“My lord king,” I began, weighing my words with care. I had heard of his legendary temper. “I am in the queen’s care. It is meet that I ask her permission, no matter what I do.”

“Even if I order you otherwise?”

I thought perhaps that he was making another jest at my expense.

“My lord, I obey you in all things, as I would my own father.”

This statement displeased him. His gray eyes darkened, and I tried again.

“Your Majesty, I have been brought here to serve my father’s treaty. I am here as a princess of France. I will serve you always, in whatever way you require. For my honor is bound to your house, and will be for the rest of my life.”

I thought this speech a pretty one, and watched his face as he took it in. Henry did not smile as I had hoped, but looked at my hair, at the way the curls fell across the front of my red gown. The firelight hit the silk and made the color shine like a small sun. The red caught my eye as I looked down at it, and I saw for the first time how beautiful that color was.

“You would serve me out of duty.”

“Of course,” I said, thinking that finally he understood me.

“I would have you serve me for love.”

I sat very still, my hand on the goblet of my soured wine.

“Love is not given blindly. Love is earned, my lord king.”

Henry looked at me for a long moment, his beaker of mead in his hand. He rolled his mug along his palm, and I braced myself, expecting him to order me from his presence. I was sure that he called for protestations of love from all those around him, and I was equally sure that all but myself had given them freely, whether true or not.

I glanced across the hall, and found Richard staring at me. I had not known he was at court; I had thought him long since gone to the Aquitaine.

Henry was speaking to me again, and I turned away from Richard.

“You are not a liar,” Henry said.

“That is so, my lord.”

He laughed at my earnestness, a great booming laugh that filled the hall. Conversation stopped all around us as people turned to look at the king, to see what had set him off in merriment. They saw only the king and myself, sitting before an almost untouched trencher. Some courtiers also laughed, though they did not know the joke, as indeed I did not.

The king caught his breath and wiped his eyes on his sleeve. “Well, little princess, that makes one of us.”

I could not believe that he had just called himself a liar. He laughed again, and I smiled in spite of myself, for Henry was charming, whatever else was true about him. When he smiled, it was as if the sun had come out after a heavy rain, and shone over all the court. All in his court lived by his moods, as I began to learn that day.

The day I met him was an auspicious one, for nothing I said angered him, until the last. I was fortunate, for his moods could turn without warning, and what was a jest in one instant could send him into a black rage the next.

Henry reached out and touched my cheek. He wore no gloves, and his hand was rough with calluses from riding and from sword-play. As once with Richard’s, I found myself caught and held by the warmth of his hand.

His eyes met mine, and still he did not take his hand away. It was as if we were alone, though all the court watched us, Eleanor included.

“Well, little princess, we will see if I can earn your love, if you will not give it freely.”

A sudden hush fell over the hall. At first, I thought the rest of the court shocked by the king’s boldness. But they had not heard what he said to me. Silence had fallen because Richard had risen from his place at one of the lower tables. As one, the court turned to look at him, as did I, Eleanor, and the king. I wondered why he was not seated at the high table with us, but I had no time to ask.

“I have written a song for my betrothed,” Richard said.

A young man rose to stand behind the prince, and strummed the lute he carried. One note echoed across the great hall. There was no other sound. All I could hear was that note, and the sound of my own heart beating.

Richard lifted his voice. A prince of royal blood sang a song he had written for me in front of his father, his mother, and all the court. Such a thing would never have happened in France.

After the first note, he turned to me and met my eyes, and my nerves subsided. All I could see was him.

Richard sang of a rose without thorns that grew in darkness, in a courtyard where light rarely shone. He sang of the rose’s soft petals and sweet scent, of how all who saw it wished to pluck it, though no one had yet done so.

The double meaning in that verse brought snickers here and there across the hall. Richard turned his eyes on them, and the laughter stopped. He raised his voice to sing the last verse in his beautiful tenor.

He sang of the rose once more, of how the sun would shine on it, gild its leaves and petals, protecting it always even as it fed its growth.

He fell silent, his song finished. The applause began. Many stood, offering the prince glasses of wine, extolling him. They were courtiers, trained to fawn, but there was a note of sincere admiration in their praise. Richard nodded graciously, but otherwise did not heed them. He looked only at me.

Richard bowed low as if to offer me fealty. Tears rose in my eyes, and I blinked them away.

His eyes shone as he sat down once more. Beakers of wine and mead were offered him, but he took none, his eyes never leaving my face. Only when he looked away did I turn to the king.

Henry did not smile, his feelings well hidden behind the gray of his eyes. I saw the wheels of his mind turning, but I had no idea where his thoughts were tending.

“Well, Princess, it seems you have given your love to my son already.”

I heard the accusation in the king’s voice, but I did not have the sense to be frightened. “The Lord Richard has made me welcome. I am grateful for his kindness.”

“Are you indeed? Well, he is not the only one who welcomes you. You will find that the kindness of a king extends far beyond that of a prince.”

“I thank you, my lord.”

Henry’s face softened when I said this. As he met my gaze again, I heard the bells chiming for vespers, and I asked, “My lord king, may I go to the chapel?”

“You would go to meet a lover?” he asked.

I saw his gaze shift to Richard, where he sat among the young men. Richard met his father’s eyes, and a flash of hatred passed between them. I forced myself to stillness, until my horror passed.

“No, my lord. The call to prayer just rang. I have need of praying.”

“By all means,” Henry said. “If God calls you, do not let me keep you. I am only your king.”

I searched his face. Though he did not smile, his eyes sparkled with mirth. I could see nothing of the hatred that had lurked in his gaze only a moment before. Perhaps it had been only a trick of the light.

I stood and curtsied to him. Henry waved one hand, and I turned from him to curtsy to the queen.

Eleanor raised her glass to me, and winked. She was pleased, both with Richard’s song and with the king’s reception of me. She had taught me to speak well and to hold my own with royalty. I could see, even with the distance between us, how proud she was of me.

Richard stood when I did and simply looked at me. When I curtsied to him, he did not nod or bow in return. He watched me as I passed.

Only as Marie Helene drew me out of the hall did he raise one hand to me. I gave him one more smile before I left him standing among his father’s courtiers.

 

 

As Alais left the hall, Henry’s eyes followed her. Richard did not sit again until she was gone, but it was Henry I watched from the corner of my eye.

As I did so, I raised one hand, and my footman stepped forward with my wine. He refilled my goblet from my private silver urn. At Henry’s court, to take care to avoid poison, I drank my own wine. Also, one could never trust Henry’s steward at Windsor to keep decent wine at table, as Henry himself drank only mead. I let Amaria spread the gossip that I drank a special draft for my health, but all knew why I took care at Windsor. There were many at Henry’s court who did not wish me well.

Only after I had drunk deep and taken a last morsel of squab did I turn to Henry I was pleased to see him fawn over my daughter, as if she were some housemaid that he might take up against a wall. I thought of Rosamund, and wondered if she had spies in my court, as I would have, had I been in her place. I wondered if those spies would carry tales to her of Alais that night, and if so, how my old rival might receive them. The thought made my smile deepen, and it seemed Henry was caught in the light of my eyes. For all his attentions to Alais, now that she was gone, he had eyes only for me.

I smiled my old, wicked smile, and Henry laughed, raising his tankard. The musicians began to play the first measure of the first dance. Henry rose to his feet, and I wondered which woman he would choose to partner him. He walked, not down the steps to the dance floor, but across the dais to me.

“My lady Eleanor, would you honor me?”

Henry held out his hand to me. He pitched his voice low so that the court could see him approach me but could not hear his words.

Not for the first time, I wondered what had happened to the love that once had been between us, the great love that I had cast aside a crown for, more than a lifetime ago.

“My lord Henry, it is you who honor me.”

I, too, kept my voice low, to keep the matter private between us as I laid my hand in his. Of course, nothing for a king is ever private. I had lived as a queen since the age of fifteen. I had long since grown used to the eyes of others always on me.

He said nothing more, but led me onto the dance floor. The musicians stopped playing when Henry offered me his hand, so shocked were they to see us together. We had not danced with one another in years, since Henry first touched Rosamund de Clifford.

The musicians Henry employed were ill trained and had not the sense to start playing again as soon as we took the floor. But Henry and I had heard the first bars of the song, and knew what steps it called for. It was a dance we had enjoyed long ago, when we had both been happy.

Henry met my eyes, as if in defiance of all who watched us. The entire court was silent, and for the first few steps of the dance, we were alone on the floor, moving as one. Our bodies remembered each other.

The musicians started playing then, first the mandolin, then the lute, the tabor catching up with a crash before they all settled together into harmonious time. Henry laughed under his breath and I joined him, my merry laughter filling that cold hall, touching even the dark corners with my own brand of fire.

“It is good to hold your hand again, Eleanor.”

“I am glad to see you, Henry I missed you while you were away.”

Henry believed me, for his face softened as he looked at me. Had we been alone, he would have kissed me. As it was, he drew me closer in the dance.

“Eleanor, I am not myself when I am not with you.”

“Stay, then, and let us bide a while together.”

He did not turn from me, but his emotions were engaged, and he did not like it. He changed the subject, a gleam of mischief coming into his eyes. I had forgotten how well matched we once had been in mischief making, too.

“Your French princess is a beauty,” Henry said.

I laughed again, and Henry smiled to hear it, the warm music that had been denied him for so long.

“She is not mine,” I said.

“Well, she did not learn to tempt a man that way in the convent,” he said. “You saw how Richard would follow her, like a hound come to heel.”

I watched him, my eyes still gleaming with laughter. My smile did not slip; my expression gave nothing away.

His face darkened. “I should not have brought that boy’s name into our conversation.”

I changed the subject back to Alais before we could quarrel. “And how did you like the morsel I sent to tempt you?”

Henry laughed, as if he had forgotten Richard, though I knew he had not. “Your morsel is tempting, but not one I can digest.”

“I knew that, Henry, or I never would have put her in front of you.”

“Perhaps it is war I have no stomach for. I am growing old, Eleanor. I want peace.”

The music stopped, and the court applauded us. Henry kissed my hand. He did not raise his head at once, but let his lips linger on my skin, before all the court, as if to swear me fealty, as Richard often did. When Henry raised his head and met my eyes, Richard spoke.

“My lord king.”