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DRAKE WAS USHERED into Eleanor’s antechamber and there abandoned. Cradling his slung arm with his good one, he paced to and fro amid carpets from the east, embroidered cushions and tapestries, carved chairs and pillowed couches, crafted tables, bejeweled coffers, and marble artifacts.
The doors leading from the queen’s bedchamber finally opened. Two women entered on a rose-scented breeze.
Her wimple fluttering, Eleanor swept forward and reached out blue-veined hands. “Mon cher,” she said, “I regret not having seen you since your triumphant return.”
“The king has engaged most of my time.”
“Whilst I have been abed with a nagging cough.” She delivered a kiss to each cheek before examining him. “You look tired. Your arm? Does it plague you?”
“Every day it pains me less.”
“An unfortunate accident. The man who attacked you? Has he been justly punished?”
“He has.”
“And now you return to king and castle absolved of your crimes and restored to your position but no closer to exposing the assassin.”
Drake smiled charmingly. “I am used to such disappointments.”
“So you are.” She glanced back. “Aveline, don’t you have a greeting for your countryman?”
Drake had not taken his eyes off her since first she passed through the portal. He noted how the handsome linen flattered her figure. Remarked how the dark hue whitened her complexion. Admired how the short veil, held in place by a golden chaplet, rendered her queenly. Regretted how the downcast eyes had lost their sheen. And noticed how the bejeweled girdle revealed a widening girth.
Copying the gesture of the queen, Aveline advanced and delivered two chaste kisses. Stepping demurely back, she lowered her eyes once again.
“You have searched high and low for my chambermaid,” Eleanor said, smiling, “but it was at her request that we made her unavailable. She had much soul-searching and praying to do, and we acquiesced to her wishes. But now, I will leave you to speak in private.”
After the queen’s graceful departure, Aveline motioned a polite arm toward a chair. He could not sit. The strain was palpable. The quiet, destructive. “I can’t bear this,” he said.
“You can, you know. And you will.”
“You were right,” he said at last. “I didn’t then and I don’t now have the courage to turn my back on king and kind.”
“That is because you embrace your destiny, and have all along. You are meant to be the lord of Itchendel. And the lord of Itchendel cannot take to wife the daughter of an alewife. It’s not only demeaning, it’s against nature and God. In time you would come to resent me, as I would feel unworthy of you. As I do even now.”
“It is I who am unworthy.”
“You are worth everything, Drake fitzAlan,” she said, tears springing to her eyes. “And shall always be.” She backed away, shaking her head lest her resolve break. “On the morrow, I leave for the Abbey of Fontevraud, there to do what must be done in prayer and solitude. Bertran de Born escorts me.”
“Stephen intends to strike out on his own. Will you both abandon me?”
“Be gone with you, Drake fitzAlan,” she said, her voice cracking. “I have no more time for knights of the realm.”
His heart ached. He had so much to say and no words to say it with. “This is to be the end, then, between you and me?”
Her smile was dispirited. “How can it ever be the end? I take you with me wherever I go.”
“But―”
“There is no more to say.”
“And the child?”
“Shall be cherished.”
Dropping to one knee as a courtly lover would before a noble lady, he took her hand. “Domna, per vostr’ amor, jonh las mas et ador!”
Aveline took a last look at him, and with a swirl of her skirts, was gone.
Drake remained where he was, staring at empty hands, one splinted, the other free, and both prisoners to his birthright.
Queen Eleanor entered on a whisper and said, “Drake, cher. I have someone for you to meet.”
Rising to his feet, he turned.
Beside Eleanor stood a girl. Tall for her tender age, she was dressed in pearlescent splendor. The ivory samite of her gleaming gown accentuated gossamer hair kissed white. Brought up from a sweeping neckline, her shiny locks twisted into overlapping plaits. In one perfect stroke, a single pearl fell forward over the center part of her hair. As a final testament to her beauty, a string of pearls choked the high reaches of her throat. She curtseyed, bowing her head abjectly but slanting her eyes up toward him with the kind of directness that only comes from breeding and the surety of one’s place. She was neither short, nor fat, nor pruny.
“May I introduce you,” the queen said, “to Matilda of Angoulême.”
