The Conqueror's Queen

  For my mum and my dad who, despite being chemists, have always been so supportive of my mad desire to be a writer.

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  PART TWO

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  PART THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  EPILOGUE

  HISTORICAL NOTES

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  PROLOGUE

  Sometimes, when she closes her eyes, Mathilda can feel it still – the driving pulse of the whirling, beating dance that first taught her the power of a man. She’d thought dancing so fine until then, so elegant, so magical, but that night she discovered its darker side – and she liked it. She thrilled to the insistent thud of heart against heart, the light turn of the reel lifting her high onto her richly slippered toes, the sweeping assurance of strong arms.

  ‘You are too good for me, my lady.’

  His words had whispered across her cheek like butterflies, trailing blushes.

  ‘I am,’ she’d agreed, because it was true.

  He was Lord Brihtric, Saxon ambassador to the court of Bruges; she was Lady Mathilda, eldest daughter of the great Count Baldwin. He was a quiet landholder in some green corner of southern England; she was the niece of King Henri of France. He should marry minor gentry; she was destined for a great match linking Flanders with an advantageous land. And yet he carried himself like a powerful man and, more than that, when she was in his arms he made her a powerful woman.

  ‘No one, surely,’ she said, ‘is too good to dance?’

  He smiled at that and lifted her closer to his broad chest and then, with a low laugh that laced deliciously through the feast-smoked air, he spun her until her royal blood pulsed against her skin as if trying to escape and laughter burst from her lips in heady joy.

  The rush of the reel was a potion stronger than any wine and the music seemed alive around her – the merry melody of the fiddle the trill of a tiny flute and the pulse of the drum beneath. The air was ripe with the exotic perfume of the ladies – cinnamon and allspice, bought in the vivid markets of Bruges and now mixing with the meaty smoke of the fire and the warm musk of men. And his eyes were Saxon blue, like summertime skies as they bore into her own, all laughter gone and in its place a rich, deep intent.

  Had it been a kiss? Not truly. Not in the way kisses were giggled over in the bower, all frenzy and moisture. No, it had been more as if his words had run along the curve of her mouth and disappeared again into the press of other dancers jostling and turning and chattering as if this were just another night at court.

  ‘You are too good for me, my lady.’

  Words or a kiss? Still she cannot tell, cannot separate the two, for they were lost almost before they began and then, in a crash of cymbals, her father ordered the dance ended and Brihtric was gone and trouble came tumbling down upon her poor romantic head.

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER ONE

  Bruges, June 1049

  ‘I will not marry that man.’

  Mathilda put her hands on her hips. Her whole body was quivering with anger but she forced herself to stay calm for she knew from long experience that her father did not take kindly to rages. Already the skin was tightening around Count Baldwin’s usually genial lips and his fingers were clenching on his wide leather belt. Mathilda took a hasty step forward, being sure to keep her copper-haired head demurely low.

  ‘That’s to say . . .’ She fought for words. ‘I thought that you were looking for a “great match” for me, your eldest daughter?’

  Baldwin’s eyes narrowed.

  ‘This is a great match, Mathilda.’

  Her head snapped up, stunned.

  ‘But Father, how can it be? He’s a bastard.’

  Mathilda felt the warm air of the family bower settle uneasily around her father’s silence. She looked to the arched window opening, longing to escape into the pretty city of Bruges just beyond the palace yard, but the glass her mother had had fitted last year made the roofs and spires warp and mist. She forced her eyes back to Count Baldwin.

  ‘It’s true, Father, is it not? Surely we can talk about this reasonably? Is that not what you have brought us up to do? Question everything, you’ve always told me.’

  ‘Everything but me,’ Baldwin snapped back. ‘I must see you wed, Daughter, before you recklessly try and do so yourself – again. Duke William is as good a prospect as any, bastard or no. Perhaps he will be able to tame you as I clearly have not.’

  Mathilda felt treacherous tears spring to her eyes and fought frantically to keep them inside.

  ‘This, then, is because of . . . of Lord Brihtric?’

  ‘Not because of him, Mathilda, no. This match is a carefully considered one, of great political and personal advantage to Flanders and to you. The timing, however, is good, as your unseemly outburst has proven. You are grown too wild and I cannot have you making fools of us all again.’

  ‘I did not . . .’

  ‘Silence!’

  Mathilda ground at the rushes on the oak floor, furiously crushing a sprig of rosemary beneath her toe. She had not ‘grown wild’. It had just been a letter, just a suggestion that if Lord Brihtric were to pay another visit to Flanders she would be pleased to welcome him. She hadn’t actually said that she’d marry him; her father’s thick-headed spies had misinterpreted the language, that was all. She still didn’t know whether to be angrier with them or with Brihtric for letting them see the damned letter. And now it seemed that his weakness would have her shackled to some rough-edged upstart of a Norman duke. She crushed another sprig of rosemary then forced herself to look up again.

  ‘I do not question you, Father, merely ask for a little more detail. You have always told me that I have royal blood and must not let it be joined to a man with any less and yet . . .’

  ‘And yet, Mathilda, royalty can be won as well as inherited.’

  ‘No, it cannot,’ Mathilda countered. ‘A crown can be won, perhaps, but blood cannot be changed.’

  Count Baldwin looked to the elegantly painted rafters and sighed.

  ‘Whose idea was it to educate these girls?’ he demanded, his sharp eyes suddenly fixing on his wife, Adela, who had been watching the exchange with the same quiet, dignified interest with which she approached everything.

  ‘It was mine, Husband,’ she said, unflinching, ‘as I was educated before them in the French royal court. Education gives women finesse and makes them useful helpmeets to their husbands.’

  ‘And defiant daughters to their fathers,’ Baldwin countered. ‘I’ve never heard the like of it – refusing a
husband who has been carefully and lovingly chosen. Speak to her, Adela.’

  Mathilda turned deliberately to her mother. This would be interesting for Adela was fiercely proud of her French royal blood and had brought her girls up to believe in breeding and lineage.

  ‘You would see me, Mother, wed to a bastard duke of a province barely one hundred years old?’

  ‘Mathilda,’ Baldwin growled but Mathilda kept her eyes fixed on Adela who had turned an entertaining shade of plum.

  ‘Duke William,’ she said carefully, ‘cannot help on which side of the sheets he was born.’

  ‘Ha!’ Baldwin crowed delightedly, eliciting a nervous squeak from the third woman in the room.

  Mathilda looked scornfully back at the young woman she called her cousin, huddled against the stone wall as if she might gladly blend into the rich tapestry hanging upon it. Judith was two years younger than eighteen-year-old Mathilda, but sometimes seemed half her age. She was intent on art and liked nothing better than to bury her nose in fusty manuscripts or spend hours in heavily painted churches, both of which bored Mathilda no end.

  Judith was actually her aunt – born to Count Baldwin’s father by his second wife – but after the elder Baldwin had died her mother, Eleanor of Normandy, had gone scuttling home to a nunnery without her. And now, it seemed, Mathilda was destined to follow her over the wretched border. Unless . . .

  ‘Why not Judith?’ she suggested eagerly. ‘She’s half-Norman already. She can marry Duke William.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s what Duke William wants,’ Judith said primly.

  Mathilda tutted.

  ‘Normandy would suit you, Judi. And you could see your mother again.’

  Judith’s blue eyes clouded.

  ‘My mother made it perfectly clear she had no interest in seeing me when she took the veil, Mathilda – why should that change now?’

  Mathilda heard the hurt in her cousin’s voice and felt bad but it didn’t mean the idea was wrong.

  ‘Even so, there are many churches in Normandy with lots of pretty paintings. You’d like that and . . .’

  ‘No.’ Baldwin cut through her, his voice like ice. Mathilda swallowed and looked slowly back at him. ‘There will be no marriage for Judith, not in Normandy at least, for she is Duke William’s cousin and too closely related to marry him.’

  ‘And I am not?’

  Baldwin shifted and she felt a flare of hope.

  ‘You are related, but only distantly. It would take a petty churchman indeed to consider it an impediment. It is a good match, Mathilda.’ His voice brooked no further argument.

  ‘What manner of man, then, is this William?’ she asked nervously.

  ‘Manner of man?’ Baldwin spluttered. ‘He is a duke, Maud.’

  ‘But what is he like?’

  Baldwin wrinkled his nose.

  ‘I don’t know. He’s tall, I suppose, and dark. His hair is cut very short – I did notice that – and he has no beard. A bare chin. Totally bare. He must be at it with a knife every damned morning. He has a clipped, efficient way of speaking. I like that – no frilly chit-chat. He doesn’t waste time, Duke William, and he’s strong. They say he can bend a bow further than any other man.’

  ‘Bend a bow? What use is that to a duke?’

  Baldwin shrugged.

  ‘I’m not sure but I hear tell that William is innovative. He fights with cunning.’

  ‘But how does he dance, Father?’

  She asked the question lightly but Baldwin tensed.

  ‘I know not, Mathilda, and I hope very much that he dances not at all. Dancing is trouble, especially . . .’ he jabbed a finger in her face, making her flinch back ‘ . . . where you are concerned.’

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘Cease, Mathilda. Drop these foolish notions. I will not have this nonsense all over again, do you hear me?’

  Mathilda’s skin needled and she had to put out a hand to the wall to stay upright. Rogue tears pricked again at the bittersweet recollection of those magical dances with Brihtric. She’d thought herself so happy but it had all been an illusion.

  ‘Would you not like to be a duchess, Mathilda?’

  The quiet question came from Adela. Mathilda’s eyes locked with her mother’s and she tried to give it proper consideration. Adela had always taught her to think things through. ‘Men are stronger in arm but women can hone themselves the stronger mind,’ she’d always said, adding, ‘believe me, a sharp wit cuts deeper than the finest sword.’ Mathilda had to think now – and fast.

  ‘Duchess is an honour, Mother,’ she agreed carefully, ‘but you raised me to be a queen.’

  Adela’s sharp intake of breath rattled around the rich bower but she recovered swiftly.

  ‘As your father said, Mathilda, crowns can be won.’

  Mathilda laughed bitterly.

  ‘Oh, and where is Duke William going to win a crown? France? Is that the plan? Because I think your royal brother King Henri might not be best pleased, Mother. Or the empire perhaps? Will Duke William give you swords to fight Emperor Heinrich for Germany, Father?’

  ‘Mathilda, you are going too far.’

  ‘But if my intended husband is to win a crown, surely I deserve to know which one?’

  ‘Hush, Mathilda,’ Judith protested from behind her. ‘This is treasonous talk. It is . . .’

  ‘England.’

  Baldwin spoke the word so low that Mathilda thought she’d dreamed it. She framed her lips to repeat it but dared not. England was an ancient land, rich in both treasure and tradition, and coveted throughout Europe. Lord Brihtric had owned vast lands there; that had been part of his attraction. She blinked furiously and when her vision cleared again Baldwin was upon her, his big frame looming over her tiny one.

  ‘I did not say that,’ he told her urgently.

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘There is talk, that is all. They are saying that King Edward is favouring the advisors he took with him from Normandy when he claimed the Saxon throne and that he might be persuaded to nominate his cousin, William, in the absence of another heir. But it is mere rumour, Mathilda, and you are being crass to push these matters. We are talking of the future – of dreams, possibilities, intangibles. These are things to keep in the richer wells of your mind but it is the present that counts and for you that present will be Normandy.’

  ‘And a bastard as a husband?’

  Baldwin’s smile vanished again and Mathilda felt his angry shadow engulf her.

  ‘This defiance, Daughter, does not suit you, any more than your foolhardiness suited you last year. You have had your dalliance, Maud. You have had your taste of “romance” but it is an empty dish. Love is not something that can simply be allowed to sweep over you. Love must be earned – earned with years of partnership, with mutual goals and considered plans.

  ‘Did I love your mother when I married her? Did I hell!’ Adela shifted awkwardly and Judith gave a stifled sob but Baldwin did not even notice. ‘Politic, that’s what she was. We have built our “love””, if we must use such a word, as I have built Bruges, and it is the better for it, is it not, Adela?’

  Adela nodded mutely but Baldwin’s eyes were still on Mathilda.

  ‘Duke William is a fine man, Daughter. He is a great warrior and an astute and ambitious ruler. He may dance, I know not, but I doubt it and I like him the more for it. You have danced enough, my girl – it is time for the music to stop. Duke William will arrive at my court next week and you will welcome him. Is that clear?’

  ‘Very clear, Father.’

  ‘You will welcome him?’

  ‘With all politeness.’

  ‘With an open heart?’

  Mathilda bit her lip.

  ‘With an open mind.’

  Baldwin nodded curtly.

  ‘That will do.’

  He patted her awkwardly on the head and strode away, leaving her feeling as bruised inside as if he had rained her with punches. So this was to be her fate – her p
unishment. One moment of foolishness, one little dance, would saddle her to a bastard duke for life.

  ‘A sharp wit cuts deeper than the finest sword,’ she reminded herself and, pushing Judith’s proffered kerchief away, she left the bower in her father’s wake, running from the yard to find time and space to think. The bastard Duke William was coming in a week and she must be ready.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Bruges, July 1049

  ‘I’ve said I won’t marry him,’ Mathilda said, pulling away from her ladies’ ministrations, ‘so what’s the point in all this fuss?’

  Emeline tutted and held tight to Mathilda’s copper hair so that it pinched her scalp. Mathilda winced. She was in a bad mood already and this wasn’t helping. Duke William was due at any moment and Adela had ordered her to be ‘beautified’, a task that her ladies were taking very seriously. She felt as if she’d been trapped in her chamber for hours.

  ‘Why bother trying to attract the bastard duke if I’m going to reject him?’ she demanded but Emeline just laughed.

  ‘Ah, ma cherie, it is when you are going to reject them that you must look at your most attractive.’

  She leaned over to wink at her mistress and, despite her black mood, Mathilda had to smile. Emeline was the daughter of a French nobleman who had died young, leaving his widow to enjoy many and varied bedmates, a habit her daughter had learned well. Dark-haired with a comely figure and inviting eyes, Emeline was never short of admirers and made shameless use of them. She had come into Adela’s service when her mother had finally succumbed to a second marriage but had proved far too high-spirited for the countess, who had gladly handed her to her daughter. They had been firm friends ever since.

  ‘So who are you rejecting this time, then, Em?’ Mathilda asked, taking in her artfully tight dress, carefully arranged hair and lightly rouged lips and cheeks.

  Emeline pursed her lips in teasing silence and it was left to Cecelia, Mathilda’s other attendant and as like to Emeline as warp to weft, to reply.

  ‘It is poor Bruno.’

  ‘Bruno?’ Mathilda looked at Emeline in astonishment. ‘My father’s chamberlain? But Em, he’s old.’

  ‘Forty-three. It’s not so old. And besides I wanted to see what it would be like.’