The King's Witch Read Free Page B

Richard moved back, and for a moment she knelt there, crouched forward, as if the weight of the crown forced her down. Then she shivered and straightened, her head rising, and her eyes opened.
    Johanna felt a sudden pang of sympathy for her. She herself had married a man she had met first at the altar. She reminded herself that that had worked out well enough. She thought she should be kinder to Berengaria. With the rest, she knelt and prayed for the long life and many children of the King and Queen of England.

    The feast began at noon and proceeded very briskly, like the wedding itself. The King and his new Queen appeared in the hall for a moment, where the whole crowd could see them. While they were there receiving bows and cheers, Edythe went across the courtyard to the royal chamber, to make the new Queen’s bed ready.
    Berengaria came in almost at once. With the other women, Edythe helped the girl into a long white gown, sat her in the big open bed, and brushed her hair all around her. The girl was rigid, her eyes staring, her lips pressed together, as if she faced some ordeal. They scattered flowers around her, so Edythe put a white rosebud in her hair. The new Queen had wispy pale hair, so Edythe went out to the garden and got a red rose instead.
    The King walked in with fifteen people on his heels. Edythe drew off to one side, out of their notice, but where she could watch. Richard greeted Berengaria with a proper bow and the right words, and sat down on the bed to let a squire take his boots off. After that, he lay down on his back next to his new bride and touched his bare foot to hers. Immediately after that he got up, bowed to her, and left.
    Edythe let her breath out. Everybody else followed Richard away, except the Queen and the two old Navarrese women who waited on her. Berengaria sat up straight; the rosebud fell unnoticed in the sheets; her women closed around her. Edythe came and kissed her. The Navarrese women would care for the little Queen, and she wanted to go back to the feast. She said, “God bless you, my lady.”
    Berengaria looked at her, her face slack with relief, the pure white froth of lace and silk all around her. “When will I have the baby?”
    Edythe choked a little, and glanced at the other women, barricaded behind their own language, who only stared back. “After the Crusade,” she said, and patted Berengaria’s hand and left.
    She went across the open space to the hall, where Johanna and the other women sat chewing up the good meats. The great room was splendid. Johanna had hung it with the silken banners and rugs looted from Isaac’s camp, so it seemed like a tent, the silks fluttering softly, continually, in the drafts. All around, the fading sunlight spilled in through the opening in the center of the roof to glow on the floor. Around the walls, on the hollow square of the stone couches, newly softened with Isaac’s cushions and scarves, sat Richard’s lords and the great men of the Holy Land who had just arrived. Edythe went in and stood behind Johanna, who was seated on a bench with the curved paws of a lion, and the Queen smiled and got her wrist.
    “Sit. You’ve done well with all this, I’m pleased with you.”
    A flush warmed Edythe’s throat; she sank down, her hands in her lap. She had her place here and she would be glad of it. Yet this ate at her. She lifted her eyes to the court, a broad loud splash of silks and jewels all around her, wishing she belonged here.

Two
    CYPRUS
    Philip de Rançun, who was called Rouquin, slouched against the wall, bored. Down the hall another of the great lords rose, hoisted his cup, and shouted a salute, and all around everybody cheered until the stone walls rang. So far they had agreed that the Crusade was God’s work, Saladin was the devil, and Jerusalem was surely theirs now that Richard was come, and they looked to go on agreeing until the wine ran out. Rouquin shifted his weight, his hands behind him. Richard meant to take