To Be Queen (7 page)

I clung to one hope: perhaps he was wrong. Perhaps his fears of assassination were unfounded.

Papa's hand was warm over mine; the wind in our faces was bitter. The sun did little to warm it. I could feel the hunger of the cold wind on my skin. I shivered, drawing my furlined cloak close around me.

“If I am lost, you will turn to the king in Paris,” he said.

“I know, Papa. We spoke of this already.”

“You may also turn to Geoffrey of Anjou. I fought with him in Normandy. I sought to help him win his duchy back.”

“He failed,” I said. I knew the story of Geoffrey of Anjou well. His wife, the Empress Maude, had been heir to the throne of England, but her barons had rebelled, not wanting to swear fealty to a woman. The usurper Stephen had tried to take her throne, but he had been too weak to hold her lands, either in England or in Normandy. So Geoffrey, Count of Anjou, fought for his wife, both in Normandy and in England, but he had never been able to defeat Stephen completely, and take his wife's lands back. Though my father honored the count as friend and ally, I would turn to my own barons in time of need long before I ever sought help from Geoffrey of Anjou.

“Geoffrey fights still,” my father said. “The Angevins never give up, as you do not.” Papa raised my chin, and looked into my eyes. “I tell you this, because you must hear it. If you are ever in dire need, turn to Geoffrey. He will help you, if he can.”

I did not mention to my father that a man who could not hold his own duchy, a man who could not enforce his wife's claims to the throne of England, surely could do little to help me. The plan we had in place among our trusted barons and bishops would serve me far better than reaching out to the Angevins. It showed my father's fear for me that he spoke not of our carefully laid plans but his friend Geoffrey, far away in Normandy.

“I promise you, Papa. I will remember. The Angevins are our allies.”

He kissed me and held me close. Papa thought to draw his enemies away from us by going to Compostela alone. He hoped to leave me and Petra safe behind the walls of Ombrière.

I knew well the depths we swam in, and the razor-sharp teeth in the mouths of our enemies, ready to consume us and the Aquitaine both.

“I taught you not to fear the dark,” Papa said.

My father waited for me to finish. It was part of our catechism, part of the truth he had begun to teach me when I was eight years old, the year my brother died.

“In the dark, I must keep my eyes open, so that I might see whatever comes out of it.”

How my father would have answered me I never knew, for my sister, Petra, came outside to meet us then, her women hurrying to catch her. Though she was a sweet, biddable girl, she was often restless; no one ever could keep her close and settled for longer than an hour. Petra had finished her lessons and her afternoon embroidery, and now she ran to us, her soft hair coming loose from the veil she wore.

“Alienor!”

She hugged me as if we had been separated for months and not hours. She kissed my cheek, and I took in the sweet scent of her skin. Her soft hair was blond, where mine was bronze. Though I had been named for our mother, it was Petra who favored her in looks and temperament. Her blue eyes took me in as if she knew all there was to know of me, as if she loved me anyway.

Petra was like a little bird in my arms; she did not linger long, but flew at once to our father. She was eleven years old; in a few years, she would be old enough for marriage, but to me she still seemed very young.

My father held her close. He met my eyes over the top of her head. I understood him as if he had spoken the words aloud. We would say nothing of our fears to her. We would keep her safe, as we always had, as I always would.

We went inside, Petra chattering between us. Our family feasted at my father's high table, I on one side of him, and Petra on the other. We did not linger in the hall that night, but sat up late with Petra in the room that had once been her nursery. I sent her women away, and relaxed beside her fire, my father's hand in mine, listening to Petra's plans for a new altar cloth, as if Papa's cathedral at Bordeaux needed yet another one.

Finally, even my sister's energy tapered off, and she lay down on her feather bed.

“Papa, you are going away tomorrow,” Petra said. “But you must come back. Promise me.”

My father never lied to us, not even to offer comfort. He did not turn away, but kept his eyes on hers. “I promise that I will be careful, and do all I can to come home to you,” he said.

As I watched, Petra's eyes filled with tears. I squeezed her hand. Lies fell from my lips easily, even then. I would have done more than lie to comfort and protect her. “He will be back, and with us in a month's time,” I said.

I thought at first that Papa would contradict me, but he said only, “God willing.”

Petra heard our father's words, but it was my eyes she sought as she lay against her bolster. Her blue gaze pierced mine.

“God willing,” I said.

She heard the prayer I uttered to her god, and she was satisfied. Her eyes closed then; my father and I stayed beside her, until her breathing deepened.

Papa leaned over and kissed her, murmuring into her hair something that I could not hear. Those words were lost, for she did not hear them either; she slept without stirring.

My father moved with me toward my own rooms. We walked alone, though we were rarely alone in our keep. His men slept on the floor of the great hall, waiting to escort him to Spain on the morrow.

“I will love you always, Alienor, until the day they put me in the ground. And if the Church is right, my soul will remember you, even beyond death.”

There were tears in my eyes, but I laughed in spite of them. “I will see you then. We will recline in hell together.”

Papa did not speak, nor did he laugh with me. He wiped my tears away, but they fell too fast, and were too many. He could not stop them, even with his linen kerchief. He left me the soft white linen with his crest embroidered on it. At the door to my room, Papa kissed me, his lips lingering on my forehead as if to bless me, though he and I believed in no gods, and had no saints to succor us.

I still felt his lips on my skin the next day, when I stood in the castle bailey and watched him ride away. Papa raised his gloved hand before urging his horse down the road that had no turning. I did not weep there in front of all our people, but watched him go dry-eyed. Petra wept for both of us.

It was weeks before we heard the news. Petra and I sat in the garden of the keep among the flowers. The white stone of Ombrière rose around us but did not choke off the sunlight and air. Pear trees clung to the inner garden walls, their blossoms white against the vivid green of the leaves. Their bark was darkened by rain, as were the limbs of the fig trees that waved against the deep blue of the sky. Every few moments, some cool rainwater would shake loose from those leaves in the wind, and fall onto my sister's embroidery. Since she did not mutter under her breath against the sprinkles that fell from the leaves above our heads, I knew that she embroidered simply to stay calm, as we waited for word from our father.

Though I feared for Papa, I felt sheltered in his favorite keep among the flowering trees my grandmother had planted. It had rained that morning, but the sun had come out at noon, and my sister and I had emerged from the castle keep with it.

Petra continued to work her needle while I read to her in Latin. She had little interest in words or books, but at eleven, she had begun to notice men, so that I had to keep a close watch on her. I made sure that she was observed at all times by every old crone I could find who was trustworthy. Still, I feared Petra might slip my nets and get herself with child before her marriage could be arranged. So far, my sister stayed obedient to me, though her eye wandered over every virile young man in sight.

I was sitting in our grandmother's flower garden, worrying over how to rein my sister in, when news came of my father's death.

The boy who brought word was pale with his task, gasping from the hard ride he had made. I learned later that he had traveled straight to Bordeaux from Spain, driving almost six horses into the ground. My father's squire was barely fifteen, a boy named Guillaume.

I held the letter in my hand, its old vellum as soft as a caress. I knew what it contained before I opened it, from the dark and frightened look on Guillaume's face. He had brought this letter straight to me. I recognized the seal of wax from my father's signet ring, still unbroken on the vellum in my hand.

As I peered into his face, I saw that this boy acknowledged me as duchess, as had every man who had ridden with him. My mind was one large bruise; I could not even feel pleasure in the fact that my father's people had come to me before the archbishop of Bordeaux, my father's friend, in whose keeping I was supposed to be. A gray fog stole over my eyes, and over the contours of my mind, as I broke the seal. I read the Latin of that letter, words of condolence that seemed sincere. The priest from Compostela who had written of my father's death had not had a hand in it.

My father had died within the Church precincts after drinking bad water, and sickening from it.

I could not feel the pain. Someone had killed him; I knew the term “bad water” was a euphemism for poison.

Fear rose in my throat, unexpected and unlooked for. Grief I had anticipated, as well as tears, but neither came. I would have welcomed them. Instead, the gray fog over my mind turned black, and terror rose from the ground as if to smother me and mine, threatening to block out the sun for the rest of my life. My life, which would be short if I did not think clearly, as Papa had taught me.

If I faltered, men would come. They would attack our keep. If my own barons could not reach us in time, the walls of my father's palace would fall, and my body would be forfeit.

Rape did not frighten me. All women faced such danger every day of their lives. A coronet was no protection from that. I feared worse, for with my body would go the Aquitaine. Some brigand might make himself duke if I could not complete the contract to wed the king's son.

I was driven from these thoughts by the sound of my sister crying. I had not spoken, but she had seen the look on my face, and had read the words of the priest's letter. It was the only time I ever regretted that Papa had taught her to read Latin.

I heard Petra's screams before I felt her clutching me, her small hands fastened on my gown. I came to myself, looking down at the blond braids that bound her hair. The letter that held my father's death lay discarded on the stone walkway where I had dropped it. I lowered myself to a bench close by, and brought Petra with me. As my sister wept, the last of my childhood bled out of me with her tears. I felt it go as I sat and stroked her hair.

The plan of action that my father had laid out for me began to form in my mind. I clung to it, as if it were a scrap of vellum with my father's last words written on it to guide me. My fear lay down, like a dog that would look to bite me later.

I met Amaria's eyes. She stood by, silent as she always was, ready to do my bidding. She was only one year older than I, but she was steady, a high rock in the world when the waters rose to drown me. I held fast to that rock, and took strength from her.

“Send for the archbishop,” I said. “He must know at once.”

She did not hesitate, but took up the letter I had dropped.

No doubt the archbishop had heard already of my father's death, for once such news reached the keep, it would spread through the city like wildfire in dry summer grain. But I must begin as I meant to go on. I must summon the archbishop to me. If he acknowledged me as duchess and as my father's heir, he would come when I called for him.

Amaria left at once. Guillaume had begun to weep when Petra did, but he still knelt by me, though his knees trembled with exhaustion. He reached into the pouch at his belt, and brought forth my father's signet ring. Its ruby gleamed in the light of the dying sun. I raised it above my sister's head, and looked at it in the fading light. The last time I had seen it, that ring had been on my father's hand. It was too large to fit even my middle finger, so I slid it onto my thumb.

The archbishop came to me in my grandmother's garden instead of sending a clerk to fetch me back to him. With that one gesture, he confirmed me in my state. That more than anything told me I was duchess now: the sight of my father's proud churchman, bending one knee to take my hand in his. He kissed my father's ring, and met my eyes.

“I am sorry, my lady. I am sorry for your loss.”

For this man to humble himself before me spoke more of his love for my father than anything else he might have done. I pressed his hand, unable to speak, for a rock had lodged in my throat. I had to swallow hard to discard it.