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