Chapter 7 ALAIS: A ROSE WITHOUT THORNS

Winchester Castle May 1172 The sable Eleanor had given me was warm around my shoulders, but I could still feel the cool of the evening where it came in at the window. I drew the queen’s fur close over my shift and went to look down into the garden where I had first seen Richard alone. The darkness below was deep; only the scent of roses drifted up to me. From somewhere in the keep, I could hear laughter at the feast. “My lady, come away from the window.” Marie Helene heated mulled wine for me in a bronze goblet. I drank it, but it did not warm me. I saw once more the gray dove in Richard’s hand, and the glint of his knife. Marie Helene had listened to my story of the hunt, but said nothing. Now we stood alone in silence as the feast went on below. Eleanor had brought me back to my rooms herself, and left me there, saying that I need not dine in the hall that night. Indeed, it would have been too much for me to sit among her courtiers with Richard on one side of me, the knife he had used on that bird fastened at his wrist. I had never seen an animal killed before, though I had eaten meat all my life. I told myself that I was simply being squeamish, that my delicate folly was not worthy of a princess of France. Still, my mind would not let go of the sight of that gray dove; over and over again it bled to death on Richard’s glove, while Richard’s bird of prey ate its warm heart. I set the bronze goblet down, and reached for my prayer beads. Though I prayed to the Holy Mother, She had not taken the sight of that bird’s death from my mind. It lingered, so that I wondered if that creature’s death contained a message for me, one that I must heed. “Marie Helene, the prince hunts often, does he not?” “Yes, my lady. As does the queen.”
I sat on one of my room’s chairs, its curving arms and soft cushions supporting me as my mother might have done, had she lived; as Eleanor did with her very presence, when we were alone. “I saw that dove in my lord’s hands, small and helpless, and I thought, dear God, will they deal so with me? Am I the dove, and they the hunter?” Marie Helene sat down close beside me. She did not turn from me, nor did she speak. She took my hand in her own. I expected her to tell me that my mind had taken on a morbid fancy. Convent-bred, I was simply not used to such sights, and to the actions of a man, a real man, such as my betrothed. But she said none of these things. “The Lord Richard hunts for sport, as does the queen.” She leaned close to me, and whispered so that the walls with their many ears would not hear. “But know this, my lady. Never has the Lord Richard looked on a woman as he has looked on you. He honors you, as he has honored no one else.” Her words rang in my ears, and the silence that followed seemed to smother them. I held them close to my heart, for they held my own hope. I prayed to the Virgin, and this time found a touch of peace, Her hand on mine, just as Marie Helene’s was. Once more, I heard from afar the laughter in the great hall. Eleanor expected me to face what came, and so I would. I would put my trust in her, and in my husband-to-be, and in God, who had led me to this place for the good of France. I woke the next morning to sunlight falling on my bed from the windows over the rose garden. The servants came in to light the braziers as I reclined on my pillows. It was cool and damp in the castle at Winchester, and braziers were always lit to ward off the chill. My fears of the night before had faded with my sleep, but the taste of them lingered. I washed that tang away with watered wine, and stood still as Marie Helene dressed me in fine blue silk. A gift, as all things were, from the queen. A summons came early from Eleanor. I knew that Richard was leaving that morning for the Aquitaine. She called me to her, that I might see him once more. In the antechamber of the queen’s solar, three stone walls were warmed by tapestries. The fourth was dominated by windows. These were not narrow windows that would be shuttered against the cold come winter. They stretched to the ceiling and were covered over with glass, so that the sunlight shone through in wavy patterns. Instead of walking into the solar to see the queen, I stopped at the windows, and reached out to touch them. The glass was warm under my hand. I heard the lady with me draw in her breath. I knew then that he was there. I turned to smile at Richard, and bowed low to him. He did the same to me, then stood looking at me from the doorway of his mother’s solar. He was dressed for the road, with a breastplate of worked steel, and chain mail beneath that. His hair fell to his shoulders in waves of reddish bronze. His large hands were covered in heavy leather gloves that made them look that much larger. Richard held a rose between the first fingers of his right hand. He held it carefully, delicately, as if he was afraid to crush it, as if he did not know his own strength. Something in his stance reminded me that he was a warrior. It was not just the armor he wore but the way he carried himself as he wore it, as if, were we overrun in that moment by some unknown enemy, he would stand before me and defend me to his last breath. Had an unknown enemy stormed the castle keep, Richard would have been ready to face them. I had always known he was a warrior; he was famous for his prowess in war, as young as he was. But I had seen only the poet and the gentleman, the man of courtesy who had bowed over my hand with his mother watching us. This man was more than that. More lay behind the blue of his eyes than I had dreamt of. Richard knew by now that I had been frightened by our hunt. He stood in silence, as if he feared me, or as if he feared to frighten me once more. I saw compassion in his blue eyes, where the day before I had seen the thrill of the kill. His compassion warmed me as all Eleanor’s furs and mulled wine had not. Richard crossed the room to where I stood beneath the window. My breath caught as he came near, and his broad shoulders blocked out the rest of the room, so that Eleanor’s woman was hidden from me altogether. His gaze lingered on my hair, where my dark curls caught the sunlight. My veil had slipped down to my shoulders, and I had not bothered to put it right again. “Alais, I am glad to see you before I go.” His heavy leather gloves dwarfed the flower he held. He offered it to me. “I know that you love roses. I had hoped to see you this morning, so that I might give you this.” I ran my hand along the stem. It was smooth, with no thorns. I breathed in its scent, a perfume that was heavy but not cloying. The rose was dark red, a darker red even than one of the silk dresses I had been fitted for. “Thank you.” I would keep that flower, long past the time when its scent was gone. I would dry it, pressed between two pieces of silk. “I would like to write to you,” he said, “while I am in the Aquitaine. You can have one of my mother’s ladies read my letters to you.” “Oh, no,” I said. “I can read Latin for myself.” Richard smiled at my pride, and I did nothing to hide it. “Then I will write to you in Latin,” he said. “And no one but my father’s spies will read it.” I laughed. “Surely no spies care what a betrothed couple has to say to one another.” He smiled as if he did not believe me. “Perhaps you are right. Perhaps we will be immune to spies and their poison.” “God grant it.” I crossed myself. “I will pray for you,” I said, “while you are away.” We fell silent then, neither knowing what to say to the other. The silence in the room grew heavy, and I knew Eleanor’s woman still watched us. For all I knew, by now more women might have gathered at the door. As I stood looking up into Richard’s eyes, I found that I did not care if all the court looked on. For a long moment, he stood sheltering me from the rest of the world. Richard lifted his hand, and the heavy leather of his glove touched my cheek. The warmth of it made me lose my breath. I found that I did not want him to take his hand away I thought for a moment that he might kiss me, but Richard withdrew his hand, and stepped away The loss of the warmth of his body so close to mine woke me as from a dream at morning. I remembered myself, and curtsied at once, wishing that I could feel his touch on my cheek without his glove between us. Richard turned and was gone without another word. I watched him go, heedless of the waiting woman who stared at me, the rose without thorns still clutched in my hand. Only then did I notice Eleanor standing in the doorway of her solar. She did not step back and invite me in, but stared at me in silence, her eyes fastened on the rose I held. “Strange, Alais. When my son came to bid me farewell, I thought that rose was for me.” I met the eyes of the woman who had defended me since I had come away from my father in France. I saw sorrow in her face as well as jealousy; for love of me she did not hide it, as she would have with anyone else. I stepped forward, mindful of all who watched me. I did not kneel, for she was my mother as well as my queen, but I bowed low, and rose only when she bade me. I saw the pain in her eyes, and was reminded of how lonely her life was, of how lonely her life had always been, except when Richard or I was near. Without warning and without thought, I moved then to take her into my arms. I pressed myself against her, drawing her close to me. I felt the surprise in her bones, in her muscles and sinews, but she raised her arms to embrace me without thinking. I spoke, heedless of all around us, heedless of what her women might think, or how they might judge me for my impertinence. She was in pain. I would not stand by and do nothing. “I love you, Eleanor.” I whispered her name low, so that only she could hear. She drew me closer still, and kissed me. We stood that way a long time, as the women in her solar and the women in her antechamber stared at us as if we had both run mad. She laughed then, the music I had missed all the years I had been in exile at the nunnery. “You are my daughter, Alais, married to my son or not.” I did not understand her; my marriage to her son had been decided long ago, by kings, before I had ever stepped foot in England. So it was as a daughter and not as a princess that I reassured her, taking her hand in mine even as she pulled away. “Yes, Your Majesty. I will always be.” We traveled to Windsor the next day. The queen did not stand on ceremony, but went to the king’s court before the king himself had made landfall at Southampton. I knew that Eleanor wished to entrench herself in her husband’s keep before he could reach it. Eleanor would face him, and all that she and Richard had wrought, as fearlessly as she ever did anything. Her courage was only one more reason to love her. Windsor Castle was a great keep, with a deep moat and a spike gate that seemed to dwarf all who passed under it. I shuddered as we entered its gray stone walls. It was old, one of the first Norman strong-holds in that land. The man who held Windsor held the kingdom. Armies of servants greeted us as they had not at Winchester. They descended on our baggage train like locusts, taking away my trunk before I had even stepped out of my litter. I met Eleanor’s eyes across the bailey. She smiled to see my pride, and the fact that I would let no army of servants, and no great gray walls, intimidate me. She raised one hand, and her women surrounded her. Angeline and Mathilde were quick to flank her, as if jealous of another taking their place. Amaria led the rest of the women into the castle, but I did not follow. Marie Helene and I waited, and walked in alone. I had no word from my betrothed, though I hoped that he might write me as he said he would. The queen got a letter from him just after we rode into Windsor Castle. Jealousy came to me now in my turn; I found it took my breath away. Eleanor did not let me read his letter, but she said that Richard sent his love to me in its first lines, after wishing her good health. I had her word on this, and I hoped she was not lying to soothe me. I prayed to the Virgin that Richard had not already forgotten me, when we had been apart only one day. My rooms in Windsor palace were small but very fine. The stone floor was well swept and my bedstead was covered in fine damask, as green as the forests we had ridden through. I had two great windows that looked down on the river, not the garden, as they had at Winchester. An army of women unpacked my new clothes and placed them in the press that stood in my dressing room. My gowns hung on hooks, ready to be pressed once more, gowns in a dozen shades, all made of the same soft silk, all made in the same fashion as the blue gown I still wore. Marie Helene found me looking at my clothes, and she smiled for the first time since we had arrived at King Henry’s court. “I am glad you like your dresses,” she said. “They are beautiful and elegant, as good as anything I ever saw in France.” That was the highest praise I knew, and Marie Helene smiled even as she looked over her shoulder. “You must not mention France here, my lady. The king does not approve of France.” “Well, France does not approve of him, so that is just as well.” “My lady,” Marie Helene hissed a warning, but I only laughed. I knew that though we were alone, the walls had ears. “God save His Grace the king,” I said. “He is a good man who need not think on France.” Marie Helene relaxed to hear me say this, and quickly changed the subject back to my gowns. It was not long before some of Eleanor’s women found me, and led me down to the great hall, for it was time to eat again. I looked down the table and saw the place for the king was bare. He was not at court yet, but it seemed that everyone else was. Strange men eyed me as I took my seat among the queen’s women. Though I was still well favored and seated at the high table, I was not served off the queen’s trencher that night. As I ate from the platters of venison and squab, I listened to the gossip all around me. Men were seated at our table, one for every woman, and while they did not speak to me directly for fear of the queen, they spoke around me as if I already knew the gossip, and was only hearing it repeated from their lips. The men speculated about Richard’s sudden rise to power. Here, at the king’s high table, sat his ministers. These men helped with the ruling of the kingdom. They served the king closely, and knew well his mind. “He wanted that duchy for Henry the Younger,” one man said. The taller man beside me took another piece of venison, and drank deep from his tankard of mead. “Indeed, there is no end to the honors the king would heap on his eldest son. He wanted young Henry to have the Aquitaine, and Normandy, and England, too.” “Well, it remains to be seen how it will play out. God knows, the king has waited long enough for his sons to honor him. All they do is take, then ask for more.” My color rose when I heard this, for I knew Richard was no grasping prince. But I knew when to hold my tongue. I ate my meat in silence. Richard did not need me to defend him. “This matter of the Lord Richard puts me in mind of Thomas Becket,” the first man said. They both fell silent, and crossed themselves. The Reverend Mother wept on hearing the news of Becket’s death when I was a child. She had never told me how he died, but there, sitting at the king’s table, I was soon to learn it. “We know the king’s tolerance for challenges to his authority,” the other replied. “The king’s knights murdered Becket, and in his own cathedral.” “His Majesty had no knowledge of that and will one day do penance for it,” one young man said. “My father told me.” The two older men locked eyes above the young man’s head. They did not acknowledge in any other way that the boy had spoken. I sat motionless, my dinner dagger clutched in numb fingers. I laid my knife down, so that I would not drop it. Our corner of the table was plunged into silence. Only then did one of the men glance my way and remember I was there, and who I was. He shook his head once, and the other man glanced at me furtively, before looking away. “Well, it’s all in God’s hands.” “And the king’s.” “Amen.” I drank deep from my wine, though it was sour and unwatered. I tried to imagine what King Henry must be like, that he would order his own archbishop killed in the sacred precinct of a church. I tried to convince myself that even such a man would never turn on his own son. I almost managed to do so, until I met Marie Helene’s eyes. The fruit was brought out, and a minstrel stood with his lute to start the dancing. Marie Helene squeezed my hand beneath the table as if to offer me an assurance of Richard’s safety, an assurance I was certain she did not feel. I smiled when a young man from the lower tables asked me to dance. I did not accept or refuse, but looked to the queen for permission. Eleanor had not spoken to me all evening, apart from greeting me when I arrived in the hall. I saw that in this place she was queen but not ruler. Even with Henry a day’s ride away, his presence was felt at Windsor as if he were but in the next room. I wondered how Eleanor would fare when the king arrived, and how I might be of help to her when he came. The queen smiled when she saw the request in my eyes, and beneath her court reserve, the Eleanor I knew peeked out at me. She made a great show of being delighted with my obedience and modesty, so that all might take note of it. I filled my role as if born to it, as indeed I was, and it became a game between us. When each man asked me to dance, I would wait and catch her eye, so that she might nod and give her permission. I forgot the dinner talk of Thomas Becket and the king’s anger. I lost myself in the motion of the dance, the steps that had been taught to me by Eleanor herself. The queen winked when she sent me to the dance floor with a particularly good-looking young man. He was a lord from the north, a younger son who had just inherited unexpectedly. I knew from her ladies that he had come to court for the queen to arrange a match for him. “At least I am spoken for,” I said. “You don’t have to fear that the queen will saddle you with me.” The young man laughed, his blue eyes sparkling with mischief. He looked over at Eleanor, who was still smiling at us indulgently “I would never be so ungallant as to call your company a burden, Your Highness.” “Not for one dance,” I said. “But for a lifetime ... that might be more cumbersome.” He flushed, and I laughed. “Don’t worry,” I said. “She will make you a good match. The queen has excellent taste.” “The Lord Richard is surely a fortunate man.” Marie Helene and I left for my rooms soon after. When I curtsied to bid her good night, Eleanor drew me close. “Lead men a merry chase,” she said, “but never let them catch you.” “Not until the wedding night,” I said, speaking low, so that others would not hear me over the music. Eleanor smiled her wicked smile, and let go of my hand. “No, Alais. Not even then.”