Chapter 28 ALAIS: A CHOICE

Windsor Castle February 1173 As the months passed, I displayed my belly proudly, setting aside all my fears and misgivings, reminding myself to stand fast and to take what comes, as Eleanor had taught me. Eleanor pretended that she did not see my growing belly, but of course, all the court knew. Henry gave me a cloak made of dark blue silk, the blue of the French royal crest. The deep bell sleeves were embroidered with golden fleurs-de-lys, and the waist was gathered with a fleur-de-Iys clasp cast in gold. The blue cloak was my prize possession, lined in the softest white seal fur; the sleeves and throat were trimmed in ermine. The court saw me wear that cloak and began to realize that the king was not acting on a whim; he truly meant to make me queen. Only the king and queen wore ermine. Henry would not let me write to my father. I was to remain silent, and let the king handle all political dispatches. This troubled me deeply, but as my pregnancy advanced, a mental torpor seemed to spread over my mind, and I did not fight for this concession from Henry I knew well that Eleanor wrote to the Continent often, and never asked for Henry’s leave. In spite of my pregnancy, in spite of the fact that she still had not been removed to Fontevrault, it seemed that Eleanor and I had declared an uneasy truce. That winter, Eleanor smiled at me from down the table, and sent me dishes of squab braised in herbs and butter. Marie Helene brought her decanters of the wine my father had given me, but Eleanor and I did not speak alone. As my pregnancy advanced, I missed Eleanor more and more. I wished to go to her with questions, but had to settle for the information gleaned from the midwives by Marie Helene. I longed in the evenings, when Henry did not come to me, to sit with Eleanor and have her comb my hair, as I had once combed through hers. Though I could not sit alone with Eleanor anymore, from time to time, Henry indulged me. One afternoon deep in winter, Henry and I sat alone together, his hand on my belly, his head on my knee. Such times were rare, and I savored them, as I had savored nothing else in my young life, except the lost presence of Eleanor. During that afternoon, I had no fear for my future, no fear that Henry would turn from me. That day, even the pain of losing Richard had fled. I had brought in a musician to play for us, and the sound of the lute was sweet. For once, with my lover next to me, and my child moving within me, the sound of the lute did not remind me of Richard. I fed Henry a piece of cheese, for he still did not eat enough to please me. I leaned down and kissed him, almost forgetting that the musician was there. “This is lovely, Alais. Thank you.” “You work so hard, Henry.” I lowered my voice so that the musician would not hear me use his given name. “You work long hours to protect me, and our child. You need a time of peace, when we can be alone.” “Sometimes I think the only peace I have ever known in my life has been with you.” Henry’s gray eyes stared up at me, and I knew he meant what he said. I kissed his lips, putting all my love for him into it. He tasted of the bread I had fed him, and the English cheddar I had pared for him alone. The touch of his hand on my hair was sweet as he reached up to hold me to him. “My lord king!” John burst into the room, coming in past Henry’s men-at-arms, who looked grim. I was surprised that they did not stop him at my door as they should have. I thought at first that John, like any child, was running in pellmell to see his father. But I remembered then that John was no ordinary child, but a prince of the blood. He was a creature of politics already. Henry’s hand fell from my hair, and he sat up, looking at his youngest son. He was not annoyed, as I was. Henry knew, even in the first moment, that danger, not rudeness, brought John to us without warning. I did not move from my chair. Marie Helene came to stand behind me. “My lord, Richard and Geoffrey have deceived you. They have formed an alliance behind your back, and now they will turn their armies on you.” John extended his hand and held out a letter to Henry I watched as Henry took it and read it quickly, his face darkening, as if the sun had set in his soul, never to rise again. Henry’s rage did not surface, as it had always done whenever Richard challenged him. As I watched, Henry grew very still; then he stood to face his son. “You did well to come to me.” I saw that he would not discuss the matter further with me in the room. Henry’s gray eyes were far from me, even as he leaned down and kissed my hair. I felt the world as I had known it slipping away. I was frightened when I saw that Henry’s rage ran not hot but cold. “Alais, I must see to this. Be a good girl, and stay in your rooms until I call for you.” “Henry, what will you do?” He turned to me, all the soft looks of the afternoon gone as if they had never been. When he met my eyes, his gray gaze was bitter. I shivered beneath it. “This is an affair of state, Alais. It does not concern you.” Had he struck me, I could not have been more surprised. I sat, my belly large in my lap, and watched him go. The man I had thought would be my husband left my rooms without looking at me again, his young son at his heels. John, while only a child, had his father’s ear. I saw at once that I never would. When Henry left the room without another word to me, I knew that I would never be his partner on the throne, as Eleanor once had been. As he left to go about the business of the kingdom, as he left to arrest his son, Henry dismissed me, with as little thought as if I had been Bijou, and unable to understand him. I saw myself in that moment for what I was, a girl who had nothing and no one but a bastard child soon to come. Henry would no more make me queen than God might one day make me pope. I had been a fool. Eleanor had foreseen it. I had deceived myself, but there was still time. In spite of all I had done, I might still save myself, and my unborn child. Even now, Richard sat in his rooms, surrounded by the king’s men, surrounded by enemies. Any one of those men with pikes might push past Richard’s guard, and strike him down, as a knight of Henry’s had struck down Thomas Becket. I faced a choice, and I made it without hesitation, without remorse. Once more, I would step out on my own, but this time to defy the king. Henry had left me, and Richard might never take me back. Both the men in my life might abandon me, leaving me with nothing. But I remembered Eleanor, and the love she bore her son. If I saved Richard, Eleanor would shield me, even from Henry. I rose to my feet. “Bolt my door after I leave and do not open it except to the king himself,” I said. “My lady,” Marie Helene cried as she tried to clutch my arm. She reached for my trailing sleeve, but I slipped from her grasp. I could not stop to comfort her. While Henry would not harm Richard, his men-at-arms might. I remembered well what Henry’s knights had done to Thomas Becket. They had struck the top of his head clean from his body, leaving him dead and bleeding before the altar of God. If Henry’s knights would do such a thing to an archbishop before God’s very altar, what might they do to a treasonous prince? I opened the door behind my tapestry It led into the hidden corridor behind the wall of my room. I had never walked that path alone. Always before, Henry had been with me. I took up a lamp, and stepped into the darkness of that passage, closing the hidden door tight behind me.