PART III A WOMAN GROWN Chapter 18 ALAIS: TO BED A KING

Windsor Castle July 1172 Marie Helene waited for me in my rooms, Bijou on her knee. My little dog tried to leap from her lap and come to me, but when Marie Helene saw the look on my face, she held her back. Her sewing basket lay on the table; she had been embroidering the sleeves of my silver gown. I looked down at my arms and saw my own sleeves of gold, where the gold thread traced out my crest, and Richard’s. Eleanor giving my letter to the king was the final stroke that severed my self-control. The anger I had been suppressing all day rose in me in one great tide, and my reason was swept away. I grabbed Marie Helene’s scissors from her basket. She watched me, but did not move, for something in my face held her still. I could not bear the touch of that silk a moment longer. The cloth of gold reached around me, drawing my slender waist in its grip, choking me so that I could not move, could not breathe. I did not wait to unlace myself, but cut the laces of my gown with Marie Helene’s scissors with one smooth sweep of my arm. She gasped, frightened that I might hurt myself, but when I laid the scissors down, there was no blood on them. With those laces cut, I could breathe again, but only barely I tore the gown from my body, the beautiful, expensive gown it had taken three women a week to make. I cast it onto the stone floor of my room, and it lay there like my discarded hope. I thought to throw the scissors down on it, to trample it, as I wanted to trample on Eleanor and Richard for the way they had tricked me, for the way they would still use me, for I was in their power. I was still to marry her son. When the king’s anger cooled, in a month or a year, I would have to stand before God and swear to obey Richard for the rest of my life. I would have to take yet another oath, and keep it, no matter what came after, no matter how many women he thought to bring to his bed. My jealousy almost overwhelmed me.
My love for him lay in shards around me like broken glass. I could not walk anywhere for fear of cutting myself, not forward, nor back. I thought of my father, and how he had endured such humiliation at Eleanor’s hands when they had been married. All the world knew that she cuckolded him without restraint. And so would Richard do to me. I had known of such things all my life. To expect fidelity from a man was to expect the sun not to shine. I found that though I had held this truth in my mind, my heart had not known it. It was my heart that bled now, and burned with fire. I snatched my golden gown from the floor and tore at it. I was weak, and the dress was well made, for I only made a small rent at the hem. I lifted Marie Helene’s scissors once more and heard her say, “No, my lady!” But she did not move to stop me. I used those scissors to start a tear, but I did not want to just cut the gown to ribbons with steel. I wanted to rip the dress apart with my own hands, and that’s what I did, each tear feeding the next, until the gown lay in pieces at my feet, on the table, and draped over a chair. When I finally came to myself, I was holding one sleeve, staring at Marie Helene’s beautiful embroidery in my hand. Tears obscured my vision. I remembered Eleanor’s admonition, to give my tears to no man, but to keep them for myself, for they were my own power, and no other’s. I remembered those words, and I drew my tears back into my heart. It was Eleanor’s betrayal I thought of finally, as I came back to myself. The sight of my letter in Henry’s hand stayed with me, the proof that Eleanor had used me for her own ends, without hesitation, without remorse. Perhaps she had always done so, and my love for her, and hers for me, had been an illusion. I knew that, in the future, she would use me again. I dried my eyes on the remnant of that golden sleeve before I cast it into the fire. The charcoal in the brazier flamed high when the silk and cloth of gold touched it. My dress burned well, but gave off noxious fumes. I stood in that black smoke, until each and every piece of that gown was burned to ash. I turned then to wash my face and hands in my silver bowl. Marie Helene set Bijou down and moved my brazier close to the window, so that the fumes would be carried away by the wind over the river. The wind blew in my favor, and carried that black smoke out of my chamber. I stripped off my dirty shift, and washed myself as best I could. Marie Helene called for more water, and the castle servants brought it, though the hour was late and they all should have been in bed. I stepped into that steaming tub, and Marie Helene bathed me without a word. She sang a sweet song, low under her breath. The sound of those words soothed me as nothing else could, as did the touch of her hands on my hair. She had the smoking brazier taken away, and a new, finer one brought, one that did not give off noxious odors. She led me gently to sit beside the fire; she dried my hair so that it curled to my waist once more in waves of brown and gold and maple, hair like my mother‘s, the woman I had never seen. I longed for my mother, my real mother, for the first time since I met Eleanor. Marie Helene stroked my hair, and it seemed to me that I felt my mother’s touch behind her hand. Then Bijou, who had been frightened by my fury, came out from beneath the table and lay down on my foot. I picked her up and kissed her, and held her for the rest of the night. I did not stay awake, as I had the night before. I said my prayers, asking for a blessing on my father, on my brother, and on the kingdom of France. Then I slept, with Marie Helene beside me. Before I slept, I remembered the king’s words to me, down by the waterside. I still had the wreath he had made me. He had crowned me with those flowers; he had told me that one day he would place another crown on my head. I knew well that the king had spoken in the heat of the moment, when lust no doubt had overwhelmed his reason, or perhaps when his mood had been softened by our time together on the grass of the riverbank. Henry no doubt had forgotten his words almost as soon as he spoke them. But I remembered. Tomorrow, I would see the king. In the morning, I stayed in my rooms and Eleanor did not send for me. I took a little bread and cheese at noon, and then called for Marie Helene to dress me. I was calm by this time, for I knew my purpose. I would step out on my own. I would leave Eleanor and Richard behind, and see what I might make of my life for myself. I had the clarity of thought that comes after great anger, when a woman knows she has nothing left to lose, and everything to play for. My love for Richard still lay in shards at my feet. I would love him all my life, but it was a love fraught with lies, a love I could not live with. I would not think of Eleanor. When she came into my mind, all I could see was her elegant, tapered fingers holding my father’s letter, handing it in one graceful motion to the king. I knew her reasons for betraying me: she had handed over my letter to save Richard, as she would have betrayed anyone else to protect the son she loved. Her love for me had not stayed her hand; she had never loved me, if she could use me as just one more pawn on her chessboard. As I dressed, I thought of Henry I set aside all ideas of sin and loss, and thought of his gray eyes, of his wide peasant hands, and of how his hands felt on my waist, lifting me down from my horse. I perfumed my body and my hair with the rose water Eleanor had given me, and donned my red silk gown. I paid close attention to my shift as well, and chose one embroidered by Marie Helene with red flowers at the hem and along the collar. I did not draw the string at the throat closed tight, but left the shift to drape over my shoulders. I knew that with one tug, it could easily be drawn off. I wore my red silk gown, for it was the first dress Henry had seen me wear in his hall the night he fed me from his own trencher, the night he offered me venison from his own knife. I laid a light veil across my hair that covered my curls but did not hide them. Over that veil I wore the filet Eleanor had given me, the fleurs-de-Iys of my father’s crest riding like a crown over my brow. I looked into my bronze mirror, and I did not recognize the woman reflected there. My face was the same except for my eyes. “My lady” Marie Helene said. “You must consider” “I have already considered.” “Your Highness, you must think of the queen.” “I do think on her, Marie Helene. I go to the king. Every step I take toward his chamber, I will think of her, and of her son.” Marie Helene did not speak again. As I watched, two tears formed in the shadows of her eyes. They fell in silence, marring her cheeks. “Do not weep for them,” I said. “My lady, I weep for you.” I laid my mirror down, that I might not see my own bitterness. “Marie Helene, there is no need.” I left then and walked alone to the king’s chambers, though Marie Helene asked to go in my stead. She hoped to call on him, so that Henry might turn her, and thus myself, away. I knew better than to send another to do my bidding. I was nothing, and no one. I had not even Eleanor’s love and protection; to her, I was just one more thing to be used and discarded. Whatever I was, and whatever I would be, I would have to make of myself. The king was not alone, as kings never are. I stood outside the door to his antechamber, dressed in my red silk gown. The men-at-arms who kept the gate stared at me as if I were an apparition. I simply smiled at them, and asked to see the king. They did not know what to do, so they sent a page inside with my request. I had chosen my time well, and carefully, for the daily business of the kingdom was winding down. In an hour, the king would go to the main hall, to greet his people and break his afternoon fast. There would be dancing and singing in the hall, as there was every night. Women would smile at him, offering him their charms, were he to choose to taste them. If I had my way, Henry would not be there that night. I did not wait long. Henry’s chamberlain called me in almost at once, bowing to me, for he knew who my father was. I saw Henry standing beside his worktable, which was piled high with scrolls of vellum. Lamps burned and smoked, for in the depths of Windsor Castle it was already night. “So, Alais. You come for me.” I met his gray eyes without flinching. His face reflected none of his usual easy familiarity with me. I saw his anger, thinly veiled. He had not forgotten my letter to my father. For a moment, I feared that the connection between us had broken, burned away in the fire of his lust for his whore or in the fire of his rage, as my letter to my father had burned to ash. But as I saw the flicker of anger take light behind his eyes, I knew that we were not done with one another, not yet. All was not lost. I still might play, and win. I stepped into the room, and Henry’s ministers made way for me. He watched me, standing by his table, a roll of vellum in his hand. His eyes did not leave me, though he feigned indifference before the men standing there. I felt the heat of his gaze first on my face, then on my breasts and hair. I had him, and I knew it. It was for me to play it out. I raised my first pawn, and knelt before him. There was a deep silence then, as all his men stared at me. I felt that each man wished he were alone with me. Each wished that he might draw that veil from my hair, and cast my filet aside, the gold of my father’s fleurs-de-Iys tossed to the floor, my silk skirts raised above my waist. I knew little of the act of love, but the night before, I had made Marie Helene describe it to me. At first she feigned ignorance, then modesty, but when I told her what I would do, she dropped all pretense and explained what would happen, and how it would hurt, and why a woman, once lost, was lost forever. I did not care. I did not mean to lose myself to Henry, as I had to Richard and Eleanor; I meant to find the road to my future in him. The silence stretched on, and I neither moved nor spoke. Henry finally raised one hand. “Leave us.” Whatever business they had been about, whatever moment I had interrupted, was over. Henry’s ministers filed out, one behind the other, each seeking the sight of me once more before the chamberlain closed the door behind them. “What do you want, Alais?” Henry came no closer, but his eyes were on mine, and the softness of my hair where it lay against the curve of my breast. I stared back at him. I did not lower my eyes. Henry liked boldness in women, and I was bold enough for anything that day. I would get what I had come for. “I come to beg your forgiveness, my lord king.” Henry snorted, throwing the vellum scroll he held onto the pile on the table. He paced away from me, and moved to pour himself a cup of mead. I felt his eyes on me, even then, and the connection between us was as strong as it had ever been, even when he held me in his arms down by the riverside. I could feel the heat rising from his body, and we were more than ten feet apart. As I knew he would, he circled back to me, until he was standing only a few feet away, his cup in his hand. “Alais, what are you playing at? Has Eleanor sent you?” I laughed, the music of my laughter rising to fill those gray walls. I did not hold it back, but let it surround Henry, and draw him closer to me, though he did not move. “I am here at no one’s bidding, Your Majesty I come for love of you.” Henry scoffed again, but I had caught his attention. He did not even look at his cup as he set it down once more with not a sip drunk from it. He stared at me, his gray eyes boring into mine, seeking me out, searching for a lie. I stared back at him. I had no more lies to tell. “I thought love had to be earned, Princess.” “It does. It has been. You have won mine.” “By not throwing you out on your ear? For not locking you away for high treason?” “No, my lord. For seeing me alone when I have done you wrong. For letting me ask forgiveness, when I have thrown away the right to it.” “No one has the right to forgiveness, Alais.” Henry stared at me, and I did not take my eyes from his. I watched the wheels of his mind turning, and saw that he still was not ready to give in to me, not yet. We both knew why I had come. He simply did not believe it. I would have to show him. “If it is forgiveness you want, you have it.” He waved one hand, as if to dismiss me, as if to dismiss the heat that even then rose between us, like a tide that would not go out. “But most penitents do not seek forgiveness dressed from head to toe in red, Alais.” I rose to my feet in one graceful motion. I had been taught to rise smoothly as well as kneel gracefully when I was a child. I stepped toward him, my senses on fire, the scent of him reaching out to me, drawing me close. Henry was a man, and did not back away from me, but his eyes widened. He would have expected this from any other woman, but never from me. “It is your favorite gown, is it not, Your Majesty?” He did not answer me, but his face hardened. I saw that he would resist me, and I smiled. He was resisting himself, and for nothing. I raised my lips to his, but did not kiss him. I took in the scent of sandalwood from his skin, and woodsmoke from the braziers that burned nearby I breathed him in, as if I would devour him. I let him see that I favored him in truth, and not only because he was king. “I wear this gown to please you, Majesty Tell me, then. Does it please you?” Henry gripped my arms and held me still. I could not tell whether he meant to hold me back or keep me near. I saw in his eyes that he was at war with himself, but I knew he need not fight a losing battle. I had chosen him already “You know it does.” Henry bent close to me, his lips over mine, his breath hot against my skin. But then he slipped the leash, and let me go. Before I could take my next breath, he was walking away from me, passing through the inner door to his bedroom beyond. He stopped in the door, and spoke to me over one shoulder. “Go, Alais. I have had enough of childish games. Go back to Eleanor.” I crossed the room to him and caught the door before he could close it in my face. “No, my lord. I will not leave you.” His body squire stood at attention in the room beyond, his eyes wide, one of Henry’s boots still in his hand. The other had been blacked already and sat warming by the fire. The boy saw Henry and myself and his face turned gray as ditchwater. He bowed when Henry raised one hand, giving him leave to go. I did not look at him, as if he were not there. I kept my eyes fixed on the king. “Alais, what do you want from me? Would you have me take you, like some milkmaid, like some peasant in a field? You are a princess of France.” “Yes, my lord king, I am a princess of France. And I would take you.” Henry laughed, running one hand through his mane of red gold hair, so that it stood up in clumps along his temples and above his forehead. He laughed long and hard, but I did not back down or look away. He thought to humiliate me, to make me leave him in peace, but I would have what I came for. Henry saw me watching him. He, too, felt the fire between us that would not go out. He sighed then, and sat down on his bed, his head between his hands. “Alais, God knows you are beautiful. And I have wanted you since the moment I saw you, kneeling in the straw. But I will not take you.” He met my eyes, and I saw the truth of why he stopped, of why he held his hand, when any other man would have had me and been done with it. “It would ruin your life.”
I crossed the room slowly, as if he were the deer and I, the hunter, as if I did not want to startle him or frighten him away. I knelt once more between his knees, and raised my face to his, so that he might see my eyes, so that he might hear me, and know that I was in earnest. “Henry,” I said. “I want the life I choose, not one that was chosen for me. I want you.” Even then he did not reach for me, but looked down at me as if searching for the truth behind my eyes. No doubt he saw that my motives were not pure. And it was true that love for him alone did not drive me. No doubt he saw my anger at Eleanor and at Richard. He saw the pain of their betrayal in my face, though I had spent a long night at prayer trying to banish such thoughts from my heart. He knew, as I did, that what I offered was a political alliance that might not last the month. Other tides could rise, and sweep him from me, and me from him. He knew all this, so his touch was gentle when he laid his hand on my cheek. “What of our treaty, Alais? Do you not think on France?” “I always think of France, my lord king.” I took his hand from my cheek and kissed his palm, as Richard once had done to me. Henry held his breath, and I felt his desire rising even as I knelt before him. But he was not won, not yet. He was a man in control of his desires. I would have to meet his reason on common ground. “Let us make a new treaty, Henry, between us. And if it fails, I swear to you that I will marry where you bid me, and follow your commands for the rest of my life. I am yours, now and forever, if you would have me.” I would like to say that Henry touched me out of thankful joy in my presence, that love conquered reason, and he swept me into his arms. This was not the case, for either of us. Even as I knelt before him, I saw his mind turning over the problem I presented him. Before he so much as kissed me twice, he knew both the risks and the costs of what I offered him. But like me, he was willing to pay. He raised me up and drew me to him, so that I sat beside him on the bed of state. I wondered how many of his sons had been conceived in that bed, legitimate and otherwise. I wondered how many mistresses had lain between those sheets, as I was about to do, and whether Henry would keep me long, once he had me beneath him. But these thoughts, all thoughts of politics and loss, were burned away in the heat of Henry’s fire. His hands warmed me even as he stripped me first of my crown and veil, then of my red silk gown. Henry left my shift on me, for it seemed he liked the sight of my body outlined against it in the firelight. The fluid light on my young body held his focus for many minutes, and I thought perhaps he would only toy with me, and not take my maidenhead. I saw him wonder if I was a maiden at all, though he was too much a gentleman to say so. But as his hands raised my shift and toyed with my nether parts, a satisfied smile lit his face before his own gown was off. “I see you are mine in truth, and not just in name, Alais.” “I am, Henry I swear it.” He laughed, his lips against the skin of my breast. His tongue ran over me, even as his fingers entered me, and I gasped. Marie Helene had told me of what might happen, of the things Henry might do to please me, but hearing the words and feeling the king’s touch were two very different things. “Alais, if you are truly mine, I will hurt you at first. I cannot help it.” “I know, my lord,” I said. He laughed, his hand lingering over my breasts while his fingers laved at my inner wetness, bringing me closer to a tightening pleasure, one I had neither expected nor looked for. “And will an entourage of your ladies come for you soon? Will they whisk you away to bathe you once you are done with me?” I gasped under his hand, while Henry watched me, as a hawk does a dove, waiting for the sight of something on my face. “No, my lord,” I said, almost too far gone to speak. “I am yours all night.” Something in my words drew him, for his fingers increased their strength on me, and I moaned, a great wave of pleasure welling up inside me, cresting over my head. I could not get my breath even as it passed, for Henry was on me. He entered me in one hard push, coming hot on the heels of my pleasure, so that I barely felt the pain at all. Henry moved within me, and I clung to him, my knees rising to take him in deeper, so that he moaned and laughed at once. “Dear God, Alais, you are a witch.” “No, my lord. I am yours.” He grimaced and convulsed within me, spilling his seed inside me as he had in countless other women, Eleanor and Rosamund included. I found I did not think of these other women after the first moment, however. I lay beneath Henry, and caught my breath, feeling the first pang of soreness as he withdrew from me. “Alais, you are a deep river of pleasure.” “One that will never run dry, my lord.” He laughed again, and I heard the thought, though he did not voice it, that “never” was a word not to be spoken between us. Who knew what expediencies the next day would bring? For now, the king was mine, and the real game could begin. Now it was up to me to keep him. The king and I lay together for half an hour, his hand in my hair. I lay across his chest, and rained kisses on his cheeks and over his forehead. He laughed at me, and it seemed to me his laughter held a hint of light, a trace of something he had not allowed himself in many years: a sense of ease and peace. I thought that we might again fall to love play. Indeed, Henry’s hand sought me, parting my thighs so that he might work his magic on me once more, and give me that pleasure I had no right to expect. He had opened the door to my pleasure, his body raised over mine, when his chamberlain came in after knocking, followed by his page and washmen. Stumbling upon us, the man exclaimed, “My lord king!” The chamberlain could have been no more shocked if I had been a nun, and Henry had me up against a wall in church on Sunday. I laughed, and Henry laughed with me, his lips on mine. It was not he but I who spoke to his chamberlain. I rose from Henry’s bed, drawing a fur about my shoulders. There was one left on the bed always, for even in summer the nights grew chill in Windsor Castle. I stood, and the fur covered me to my knees. I let one shoulder be seen, and drew my hair back, so that it hung down to my waist, a riot of curls that drew all eyes, even those of the young page, who knew better than to look at the king’s whore. “Sir Roland,” I said, “please send word to the great hall that the king will not be down tonight. His Majesty will break his fast here in his room with me.” The chamberlain turned as pale as death, no doubt expecting a shout of fury from Henry, who never let a woman order his servants in his presence. I waited, too, to see which way the die would fall. Henry said not a word, but nodded once to his man, who bowed deeply, his face to the ground. Sir Roland backed out of the room. I almost laughed at his show of abject humility meant only to hide his shock, and perhaps his secret laughter. Before he left, I raised the tankard that sat on the king’s table and found mead in it. I set it down at once. “Sir Roland, please send up a pitcher of the queen’s wine from Anjou. I would take it with my evening meal” Henry smiled, leaning on one arm, still reclined in bed as I had left him. Sir Roland stopped dead in his tracks. He raised himself from his bow, and stared at me. “Do as she says, Roland.” The man bowed once more, tearing his eyes from me, from the sight of my calves beneath Henry’s bearskin, from the sight of my hair curled where Henry’s hands had been playing in it. The chamberlain left at once, his men with him. The youngest closed the door behind them all, casting one last look of horror and awe at me. I laughed again, the music of it ringing off Henry’s bedroom walls. I crossed the room to him, dropping the fur on the floor as I walked, so that for the first time Henry saw my nakedness, my youth and curves, the bounty that I had offered him, the bounty that now was his, and no other’s. “You played that hand well, Alais.” “I played and won, my lord, only because you let me.” Henry smiled at me, his hand running once more down my back, over my thigh, and between my legs, where he cupped my sex, and caressed it, his eyes always on mine. “As long as you remember that, Alais, we will do well.” I opened my lips over his, and kissed him. He took me under him and entered me, to make certain I knew who my master was. I moaned as he rode me, this time reaching that peak of pleasure without his fingers to guide me. He rode me hard, as a stallion rides a mare, and this time I found that pleasure beneath him for myself. I left him gasping, as he left me. His body was warm over mine. I nestled down beneath him, reveling in the feel of his hard thighs, and the scent of sandalwood that surrounded me, now that I was with him. Henry looked at me, his mind working as it always was. I kissed him, but he would not be drawn to me again. “Eleanor thought she knew you,” he said. The pain of my adopted mother’s name stabbed me as a dagger might, just below my breast. I did not gasp, for by that time I knew my own strength. Henry watched my face for a sign of weakness. He searched my eyes, but did not find it. “No one knows me. No one but you, my lord king.” Henry kissed me as his chamberlain brought in our dinner. On a tray sat a silver ewer and goblet, holding Eleanor’s wine. Water beaded along the edges of that pitcher, for all the castle knew that the queen took her wine cold. I raised myself up, hiding my charms behind Henry, and behind the great thickness of my hair. “Thank you, Roland. That will be all.” The chamberlain looked to Henry, then back to me. Henry raised one hand, and his chamberlain withdrew. I kissed Henry, but his lips did not move beneath mine. I drew back, and met his eyes. “I wanted to send a message to the queen. Thank you for allowing me.” He did not speak, so I rose from his bed. I walked naked to our dinner, and set out chicken on a silver plate, and fruit, and honeyed bread. I brought that plate with his mead and my wine, and I set it on the bedclothes between us. I offered his beaker; he took it and drank deep. I raised a choice bit of chicken from the plate, and held it up, that he might feast from my hand. His lips were warm and soft on my fingertips. Henry stared at me, and took what I offered him. “You are good to me, my lord. I will endeavor to deserve it.” He kissed me, and I tasted the mead on his tongue. He set our plate down, along with his beaker and my wine. He raised himself over me and took me again, this time in silence, this time taking his own pleasure with no thought for mine, so that we would both remember that he was king.