To Be Queen (26 page)

Though he was Louis' standard-bearer, Rancon rode on to set up camp with me, and with my men. He chose the site where we would sleep, not on the exposed mountainside as Louis had instructed, but in a sheltered valley. Rancon had brought us this far with no trouble, losing few men. I decided to trust him once more.

My tent was set up on a bluff above the river, hidden in a copse of trees. Mountains rose on either side of us, but we were safe within our valley, with a wide view of all before and behind us.

Cypress and willows sheltered us from the sun, which, by the time we made camp, had begun to set already. There was a stream running close by, and the washerwomen brought up fresh water for my bath. I bathed in the silver basin that had been a gift from the Empress Eirene; it was far finer than anything I had at home. As I bathed quickly in tepid water, I sorely missed the deep bathing pools of Constantinople.

As the sun sank into the west, I sat alone but for Amaria, who stood by me. My other ladies were happy for a night without Parisians, and feasted with my knights and barons beside a roaring bonfire. Even had I wanted to join them, I would not have done so. Let them drink deep, and rest themselves, away from the prying eyes of the Byzantines and the Parisians both. There was little time for my people to enjoy themselves alone, and there were many leagues to go before we reached Antioch, and then Jerusalem after it.

I sat drinking wine from Cyprus, yet another gift from the empress, when the back flap of my tent lifted, and the Baron Rancon walked in.

Amaria's knife was in her hand. She did not lower it when she saw who had entered.

I stood, and pressed my hand to her arm. She lowered her dagger then, but she did not sheathe it.

“Baron Rancon,” I said. “You are welcome here. You might have come in the front door.”

I touched Amaria once more. She saw that I would brook no refusals. She sheathed her dagger and moved to leave me. She took up her place before my tent, and did not leave it all that night. No doubt my people saw that Geoffrey was missing, saw Amaria at my door, and knew why she stood there.

For the first time in years, the Baron Rancon and I stood alone, and looked at each other.

“Could you not have waited until dark?” I asked him.

“I have waited almost ten years. That is long enough.”

He did not fall on me and ravish me. He stood still, and waited for my leave. Even there, in that foreign land under a foreign sun, I was still his duchess. He had sworn to protect and serve me. He would not come to me, even then, unless I permitted it.

I raised one hand and he took a step forward. He did not leap on me but took my raised hand in his. I was fresh from my bath, and dressed in a light gown and shift, one I had ordered made upon coming into that country, for the heat there was more than it had ever been at home. I wore dark blue that day, like the sky at morning, with pearls around the hem, and at my throat. The blue silk beckoned him, and I knew he wanted to strip it off me. He leaned down, and pressed his lips to my palm.

He, too, had bathed, though it was not the custom among my men to do so, especially while on Crusade. I took in the scent of the thyme on his clothes, and the scent of soap on his still-wet hair. His beard was trimmed and smooth, and he was dressed in light, fine-combed wool, his boots polished to a sheen. Louis wore silk and satin for court occasions and in the great hall, but he had never taken the trouble to wear such finery for me when we were alone in my room. My husband had never come wooing; but then, he had never had to.

I moved away from Geoffrey, drawing my hand from his. I poured Cypriot wine from a silver urn into the silver goblet that matched it. Cool sweat beaded along the outside of that urn; it ran down the side, and caressed my hand as I poured. I shivered, with Geoffrey watching me.

I raised the cup between us, and took the first sip. His eyes never left me all the while, and he did not draw breath. I stepped across the deep, rich carpet on the floor of my tent, and raised the goblet to his lips myself.

His hand was on mine then, caressing my fingers. He touched my ruby ring, the one my father once had worn. He touched the diamond Louis had given me when I married him, but neither my rank nor my married state stopped him. Geoffrey swallowed one long draught of wine, then took the goblet from me. He set down the cup beside its urn. He reached for me, and I knew my time to choose was over.

Geoffrey kissed me softly, gently, as if I were made of spun glass and might break between his hands. Louis loved me, and was often tender, but he had not the skill to cherish me, even after more than ten years of marriage. Geoffrey had both the skill and the fire of a real man combined.

When I did not shy from him, he drew me close, and pressed himself against me. The heat of his body melded at once with mine, and I lost my breath. His lips were on mine again, sipping from me, as if I were a fountain that would never run dry, as if he had lived all his life in the desert, and just now had the taste of water on his lips.

I let him lead. Always Louis had to be coaxed and cajoled into the act of love, drawn along by hints and whores' tricks. I needed none of those with Geoffrey.

He lifted me in his arms as if I weighed nothing, though I was a tall woman, full of strength. He laid me down upon my pallet of furs and satin, drawing first my gown from me, then my shift. His hands feasted on me as his eyes did, for a lamp was lit beside the bed, and cast its glow over us.

In spite of the gloves he wore when on horseback or at war, Geoffrey's hands were coarse and callused, as Louis' were not. It seemed I could not drive my husband from my mind, comparing him with Geoffrey: the darkness of Geoffrey's arms with Louis' fairness, the dark heat in Geoffrey's brown eyes with Louis' soft blue. Then Geoffrey reached between my thighs to caress my nether lips, and all comparisons ended.

A heat began to build in me, a tightening so intense that I began to fight it. But I could fight nothing with Geoffrey's hands on me. His own gown and hose cast off, he leaned close; his skin heated mine as a forge heats a sword. He pressed the hard length of his body against mine, the warm curling hairs of his thighs against my soft skin. Still, he did not enter me, though I shifted beneath him, trying to coax him closer. Had I not been a queen, I would have begged him, but still his hand rode me as he looked into my eyes.

I felt it then, the great wave of power as it rose in me. Louis had fanned that flame before, clumsily, but it had never caught. This time, it was a conflagration, and I was swept up in it.

The waves of power washed over me, pleasure after pleasure, so that I could not catch my breath. Geoffrey entered me. I would have screamed had his hand not been fastened over my mouth. He rode me then, his own gasps echoing in my ears. I had not thought that I could feel anything more, but his body was in mine and on mine, riding me as I rode my mare. I crested once more beneath him as he spoke my name.

I felt the warmth of his seed spill inside me, and for once it was not just a sordid but necessary end to a man's pleasure. For once, I felt my own pleasure, and I knew how much I had been cheated of in all my years of marriage. There were depths within me that I would not have plumbed, had Geoffrey never touched me.

Had I been a weaker woman, I would have cursed Louis. As it was, I did not waste my breath. Instead, I drew Geoffrey close, that he might come to me again.

Geoffrey loved me many times that night, and each time I rose to the pinnacle of bliss, and toppled over it. When he left me an hour before dawn, I lay spent on the satin of my bed as if slain. But I still lived.

“Alienor, I will not forget this night, now or ever.”

“Nor I, Geoffrey. But you must not call me that.”

“I will not, ever again. But that is who you are to me. Alienor of the soft bronze hair.”

He kissed me then, and I tasted his regret. His lust had flown, as mine had done. My husband would return soon, and we would not be able to touch each other again.

“If you ever have need of me, I will come to you.”

I pressed my hand against his cheek. The unkempt edges of his beard had grown back in the night. It rasped against my fingertips.

“That has always been true. And I thank you for it,” I said.

“There need be no thanks between us.”

He kissed me, his lips lingering on mine as if he wished time would stand still, as if time did not exist. But even then, he knew his duty, just as I knew mine. He left me without another word. There was too much between us ever to be spoken of, and we both knew it.

Amaria came in when he had gone, and helped me wash and dress. When my women entered my tent, fresh from their own liaisons, I was already breaking my fast. Not one of them looked askance at me, or asked any leading questions. If I had not been so deliciously sore, I might have thought the night before nothing but a dream.

I was soon to discover that while I was pleasuring myself safe among the cypress trees, the world was going on around me, for good and ill. Word came to us early that morning: Louis' army had been attacked in the night. The Turks had overrun them, and only two thousand Parisian fighting men had survived.

Louis was well, they were quick to tell me, thinking that I grew pale in my fear for him. Bile rose in my throat, and I pushed my food aside. It was a dark day. I had been proved right. The Turks had attacked.

Perhaps the Emperor Manuel still secretly resented our presence in his territory. I wondered if Manuel had heard of our route, and had learned that our forces had been separated overnight. I did not doubt for a moment that the Emperor of Byzantium was capable of selling information about his fellow Christians to the Saracens. Manuel might have told the Turks where Louis and his army could be found, busy at prayer and ripe for the scythe.

I sent at once for Rancon.

He bowed to me, no acknowledgment on his face of anything that had passed between us. I questioned him in front of my men. My women had been sent from the tent, save for Amaria, who was always by me.

Though all my barons no doubt knew that Rancon and I had spent the night in love play, I saw no evidence of that knowledge on their faces. I saw nothing but respect for me, and respect for the man who led them. Rancon had kept them safe. Had we heeded Louis, had we camped on the mountain, we would all be lying dead now, food for crows, and every one of us knew it.

“And you sent word to the king yesterday, in the afternoon, to tell him that we would be here?” I asked.

“No, my lady queen. I sent no word. I thought it too far, and that my messenger might be killed. It would have been a waste of a man, and his horse.”

Rancon did not say it, though we were all thinking it. Louis had wasted more than one man's life by not heeding me, and taking ship to Antioch before this. I knew, however, that Louis and his Parisians would not see it that way.

“And the Emperor Conrad and his Germans, what of them?”

“The emperor still lives, my lady. Many of his men were killed at prayer, and others stood to fight with the king's knights. A few hundred are left alive. The Germans are making their way for the coast even as we speak.”

I did not want to hear any more. I extended my hand, and Geoffrey bowed over it. He did not kiss my ring, but neither did he let my hand go.

“You have done well. Send word to me when Louis arrives. He knows by now where we are?”

Geoffrey's eyes met mine. “Yes, my lady duchess. My men have met him on the road. The king's knights are in retreat.”

My barons bowed to me, before backing from my presence. They knew, as I did, that we would all pay for our night of safety in the valley. Baron Rancon was my war leader, but he was also my husband's standard-bearer. It was his duty to obey my husband in all things, but Rancon had remembered his oath to me first. He had chosen the safety of our people over Louis' foolish orders. My husband would not soon forget that he had been ignored, and that my people had been saved from an ambush in which so many Parisians fell.

We waited until past noon, and Louis' army still did not come to meet us. Only as the sun set did the French begin to straggle into our camp. One by one, man by man, they came among us. They drank deep from the water of the clear-running creek nearby, almost falling down where they stood. They cared for their horses, then lay down to sleep on blankets in the open air. None of the survivors set up tents, so my people did it for them. I began to see that what I thought had been a rout had been a massacre.

Louis did not come to me, but sent his man to fetch me to him. I knew then that we were in for deep trouble, the kind I had never before seen with Louis. I dressed in dark blue silk, with a rosary of diamonds and jet bound around my waist. My hair was braided down my back and covered with a linen veil. I thought I looked like a nun, which would suit my purpose. No doubt Louis had no use for a whore so soon after such a humiliating defeat.