The Queen's Pawn Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  PART I - CHILDHOOD

  Chapter 1 - ALAIS: PRINCESS OF FRANCE

  Chapter 2 - ELEANOR: FORGOTTEN QUEEN

  Chapter 3 - ALAIS: A STOLEN SEASON

  Chapter 4 - ELEANOR: THE LARGER WORLD

  Chapter 5 - ALAIS: PRINCE AND TROUBADOUR

  Chapter 6 - ELEANOR: A BALANCE OF POWER

  Chapter 7 - ALAIS: A ROSE WITHOUT THORNS

  PART II - WINDSOR

  Chapter 8 - ELEANOR: QUEEN OF SPIES

  Chapter 9 - ALAIS: A STABLE HAND

  Chapter 10 - ELEANOR: THE LION’S DEN

  Chapter 11 - ALAIS: THE KING’S JEWEL

  Chapter 12 - ELEANOR: TO DANCE WITH THE KING

  Chapter 13 - ALAIS: A CROWN OF FLOWERS

  Chapter 14 - ELEANOR: A LETTER

  Chapter 15 - ALAIS: ANOTHER GARDEN

  Chapter 16 - ELEANOR: TRUTH TELLING

  Chapter 17 - ALAIS: LOSS

  PART III - A WOMAN GROWN

  Chapter 18 - ALAIS: TO BED A KING

  Chapter 19 - ELEANOR: THE KING’S HEALTH

  Chapter 20 - ALAIS: THE KING’S MISTRESS

  Chapter 21 - ELEANOR: THE QUEEN

  Chapter 22 - ALAIS: TO BECOME QUEEN

  Chapter 23 - ELEANOR: ANOTHER LETTER

  Chapter 24 - ALAIS: QUEEN IN ALL BUT NAME

  Chapter 25 - ELEANOR: LOYAL SUBJECTS OF THE KING

  Chapter 26 - ALAIS: ANOTHER PRINCE

  Chapter 27 - ELEANOR: A MOMENT OF TRUCE

  Chapter 28 - ALAIS: A CHOICE

  Chapter 29 - ELEANOR: AN ESCAPE

  Chapter 30 - ALAIS: THE PIPER PAID

  Chapter 31 - ELEANOR: ENDGAME

  Epilogue

  Afterword

  READERS GUIDE

  More Praise for The Queen’s Pawn

  “The Queen’s Pawn is a powerful portrait of two dynamic royal women and the men who controlled their lives—or is it the other way around? Treachery, betrayal, lust—and an unusual and compelling love story, beautifully told.”

  —Karen Harper, author of The Queen’s Governess

  “The Queen’s Pawn by Christy English resurrects from misty legend Eleanor of Aquitaine, Henry II, Princess Alais, and Richard the Lionhearted. I knew the outlines of their stories, but now I have come to know them as fully, emotionally human, both flawed and magnificent. The French Princess Alais comes as a child to England to be raised by Eleanor for marriage to Richard, the queen’s favorite son. But the child becomes a beautiful woman and catches Henry’s eye, starting an ever- escalating palace war of intrigue, betrayal, and passion. Almost 850 years have passed, but Christy brings the complex time of unrest and deceit to full, lyrical life for us. A captivating love story of Richard and Alais beyond the story I thought I knew of a young woman trapped between Eleanor and Henry in their lifelong struggle for mastery over the English crown and each other. A jewel of a novel.”

  —Jeane Westin, author of The Virgin’s Daughters

  “Told with simple grace and from the heart, The Queen’s Pawn is a moving evocation of two women, deep friends but destined to a tragic rivalry for royal power and two men’s love.”

  —Margaret Frazer, author of A Play of Treachery

  “What a promising debut! With deft strokes, Christy English transforms Alais from the innocent child her father sends to England into the cunning woman her surrogate mother, Eleanor, teaches her to be—while the crafty and sophisticated Eleanor is ensnared and nearly brought down by helpless love for her adopted daughter. The complex love-hate quadrangle between Eleanor, her husband, Henry, her son Richard, and the ever more wily Alais is a fascinating and original take on this juicy historical footnote.”

  —Ellyn Bache, award-winning novelist of Safe Passage and Daughters of the Sea

  “An astonishing debut! Christy English spins an unforgettable tale of dangerous splendor, evoking the stone and tapestry of the Plantagenet era, and the fierce rivalry of two equally fascinating and determined women, whose ambitions threaten to overturn their world.”

  —C. W Gortner, author of The Last Queen

  NEW AMERIQAN LIBRARY

  Published by New American Library, a division of

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  First published by New American Library,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc

  First Printing, April 2010

  Copyright © Christy English, 2010

  Readers Guide copyright © Penguin Group (USA) Inc, 2010

  All rights reserved

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK-MARCA REGISTRADA

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

  English, Christy.

  The queen’s pawn/Christy English.

  p. cm.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-18644-2

  1. Alix, de France, 1160-ca. 1220-Fiction. 2. Eleanor, of Aquitaine, Queen, consort of Henxy II,

  King of England, 11227-1204-Fiction. 3. Great Britain-History-Henry II, 1154-1189-Fiction.

  4. France-History-Philip II Augustus, 1180-1223-Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3605.N49Q84 2010

  813’.54-dc22 2009040457

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility fox author or third-party Web sites or their content

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  For my family

  Acknowledgments

  My thanks to all who read and critiqued my work in various drafts from the eighth grade onward: LaDonna Lindgren, Laura Creasy, Tammy Monfette, Ellyn Bache, Hope Johnson, Audrey Forrester, Amy Pierce, Philip Drew, Kat Vernon, Alice Osborn, Alisa Roost, S. J. Stratford, and Beth Seltzer. Special thanks
must be given to my fabulous agent, Margaret O‘Connor, who believed in this book from the first time she laid eyes on it. I thank my brilliant editor, Claire Zion, who took an early draft into her experienced hands and, with the clarity of her vision, helped me to discover the novel as it was meant to be written. I would like to thank all the wonderful people at New American Library, especially Jhanteigh Kupihea for her insight during the revision process, Michele Alpern for the excellent copyediting, the publicist Kaitlyn Kennedy for spreading the word, and Maureen O’Boyle and her team for the amazing cover art. I thank all who believed in me from the day I first picked up my pen: Karen English, Carl English, Barry English, Vena Miller, Susan Randall, Marianne Nubel, Chris Nubel, Ellen Seltz, Susan Hurst Alford, Jenny Morris, Nicole Garrett, Janie Lam, and my Internet consultant, Andrew Seltz. And I thank Eleanor of Aquitaine and Alais of France. Though it has been my honor to convey one possibility of who these women were, I have no doubt fallen short. Alais and Eleanor live on when we remember them, no matter how imperfectly.

  PART I

  CHILDHOOD

  Chapter 1

  ALAIS: PRINCESS OF FRANCE

  Île-de-France

  February 1169

  My mother died the day I was born. I now know that this was in no way unusual, but for the first years of my life, I felt quite singled out by the hand of God. She was a great loss to me, my first loss, though I never knew her. My nurse often told me that I have her bright eyes.

  On the day I was born, the King of France gained only me, another daughter who was useless except for the alliance my marriage might bring. The day that brought me also brought the death of his queen, so that after a decent period of mourning, my father had to go about the tedious business of finding a new one, and starting all over again.

  My mother was Spanish, and a great lady, or so everyone said. Of course, they would have told me no different, even if she had been a shrew. My father, King Louis, the seventh of that name, never spoke of her.

  So my nurse, Katherine, brought me up on stories of my mother’s beauty, of her graciousness, of her unyielding courtesy. According to my nurse, my mother was a sort of saint on earth, a woman who never got angry, who never spoke a harsh word, neither to man nor woman nor servant. A woman who bred quickly and died quietly, her only fault delivering my father two girls, who could inherit nothing but pain.

  This paragon was held up before me always, so that I, too, learned silence and stillness. I learned that quiet in a woman is prized above gold, and that obedience was not only my duty but my honor. For in obedience, I best served my father and my king.

  My father was tall and thin, with the face of a monk. In a better world, he would have been free to spend his life in holy contemplation, serving God.

  That was my father’s true gift: to sit in silence and feel the presence of God. Sometimes, when the business of state was done, and no one else had claim on his attention, he would let me sit with him in his private rooms, and kneel with him at his private altar. This altar was beside the bed of state, where my sisters and I had been conceived.

  My oldest sisters did not know me, for they had been married away from France long ago. They were also cursed, I was told, because they had been spawned by my father’s first wife, the wicked Queen Eleanor, the woman who had abandoned my father for a younger man years before. No one spoke of that queen except in whispers. My nurse would summon her memory when she sought to remind me to be a good girl, when she sought to turn me from wickedness. I spent my childhood in horror of that mysterious queen, a woman who was never obedient, a woman who had gone on Crusade against the infidel and ridden astride a horse like a man.

  I later learned that Eleanor was not dead and with the devil, but had married the King of England, who was another kind of devil, or so everyone at my father’s court said.

  Just before my eleventh birthday, my marriage was arranged, now that it looked certain that I would live. During this time, my father called me to him.

  The ladies of the court brought me into a large room made of stone. The windows far above us held clear panes of glass, and sunlight shone in through those high windows, catching the dust that danced over all our heads. The ceiling was made of a latticework of stone so delicate that it looked almost like lace. I craned my neck to look at it.

  My father stood with his men-at-arms and gentlemen-in-waiting beside a great wooden chair with cushions and gilded arms. I smiled when I saw my father, but he did not smile back, not because he could not see me, but because this was a solemn occasion. I did not know why I was there, but I knew that I was expected to walk to the king.

  For the first time in my life, I walked alone in a room full of men. The court ladies followed me a few paces behind as I moved among my father’s courtiers.

  When I came to the dais, which seemed to take an eternity, I curtsied to my father, then knelt before him, as if I were his vassal.

  There was a murmur in the room, like wind in a field of barley. Then there was silence. It had a different quality now, not one of people waiting for a task to be completed, but one of people watching a play. I must have done the right thing unprompted. Though my father wore his heaviest robes of state, trimmed in gilt and ermine, now he smiled down at me.

  I had never before seen him crowned. He looked like a different person, until he smiled, and I knew him again.

  My father raised his hands and blessed me, speaking words I no longer remember. The substance of his speech was that from that day forward I was to be known as the Countess of the Vexin. I would hold the county of the Vexin in my own right, a valuable sliver of land that lay between Paris and the great duchy of Normandy. I swore to serve my king in all things, and to serve the throne of France.

  When the ceremony was over, I saw a man standing behind my father’s throne. He was a small, ferret-faced man with eyes that gleamed. I was told little in my father’s court, but I knew how to listen. I knew he was one of the minions of King Henry of England. I also knew his name: Sir Reginald of Shrewsbury; even in my nursery there was talk of him when he first came to Paris as ambassador for the English king.

  I wondered why he had bothered to come to my investiture as countess, when even I had not been told of the proceedings until the day they were upon me. Then I heard one of my father’s women speak to another as they moved to lead me away

  “God help the girl,” she said. “Going to the court of that devil’s spawn.”

  The “devil” meant only one thing to me: the wicked queen who had been my father’s wife.

  I froze in midstep, the old fear of my childhood rising from the ground to grip my throat. Its bony fingers closed off my air, and I had to fight to breathe. It was not the first battle I had had with fear, and won; nor was it the last.

  I said a prayer to the Virgin, and She heard me, for my breathing calmed and my fear of that evil queen receded. I stood alone in my father’s court, and I knew why the ferret-faced ambassador was there. My marriage had been arranged already; I was to marry one of the devil-spawn princes, a son of my father’s former wife.

  I stood still as the rest of the court moved around me. I could feel the eyes of King Henry’s ambassador weighing and judging me, finding me lacking. I was small for my age, but I drew myself up straight. I would not have a servant of my husband-to-be carry tales of me, unless they were tales I placed in his hand.

  I did not follow the court ladies to the door, as I was meant to do. I turned back, and the women standing by did not have the sense to catch me. They thought me truly one of their dogs by that time, and did not know until too late that I had slipped the leash.

  My father still stood where I had left him. He sensed somehow, as I did, that more needed to be said, words that had been left unspoken. He was a good man, and a good king, but he was never one to speak before crowds. I saw that it was left to me to do it for him.

  I met my father’s eyes and stood before him, seeing only him, while his courtiers paused at the door. Th
ey had thought to leave, the ceremony over, but I was not done with them. Not yet.

  When I heard the courtiers turn back from the outer hall, I knelt slowly, solemnly, my eyes on my father’s. The room fell once more into a hush, until the only sound was the court ladies cooing like doves by the door, until the chamberlain’s harsh voice shushed them.

  I raised the hem of my father’s robe, and kissed it. The men around him drew back, but stayed close enough that they might watch my impromptu performance as it unfolded. I did not look at them, but only at my father’s face. In that moment, I took my true oath, one that I kept for the rest of my life.

  “My lord king,” I said. “It is for me to serve the throne of France. If you call on me to travel to the farthest reaches of the world, even into the outer darkness, I will go. If France needed me to marry the devil himself, I would do it. It will be my honor to marry King Henry’s son.”

  I did not know which hell-spawn prince I was meant for, so I did not use a given name. I knew that King Henry had so many sons, when all God had seen fit to give us was my younger brother, Philippe Auguste, the child of my father’s third wife.

  My father looked down at me with such pride that I thought he might weep. I saw in his face regret that he had not called me to him alone before my investiture as countess, before my marriage had been arranged. He saw for the first time that I was old enough to understand what my duty was. Tears filled his eyes as he stared down at me; then he blinked them away.

  My father raised his hand once more to bless me, placing it on my veil where it rested on the crown of my head.

  “Daughter, when spring comes, you will be sent to marry the Lord Richard, Prince of England, son of our esteemed vassal Henry, King of England and Duke of Normandy. You are the pride of my house, the flower of France. King Henry will welcome you, and honor you, as we honor you here.”