The Miracle Thief (9 page)

“A prince! We are to have a prince!”

I kissed him full on the lips. “Or a princess.”

He kissed me back. “And now my mother cannot keep you to herself. We shall marry at once.”

***

If we had married as he said we would, perhaps things would have been different. But then perhaps he would never have been king at all.

Surely, I had been cursed by my memory of those days long past. And surely I was not a true penitent. If I were, would I not refuse to pull those memories out at night, turning them this way and that, like the finest of jewels? If I were, would I not feel shame at the remembered warmth of those stolen kisses? Would I not have stopped waking in the middle of the night with the feel of Charles beneath my fingers?

I brought them, trembling, to my face. My soul was in such desperate need of salvation. This I knew, and yet I could not seem to find it within myself to submit to saving grace. For if I gave up all my memories, then what would I have left?

“You there!”

The abbess's imperial voice startled me from my thoughts.

She pushed the young man away, letting her skirts fall back into place. “Forget what you have seen.”

I could not do that. And I knew she would not be able to either.

Walking back to the dormitory, I tried to push my thoughts of Charles away. As always, they did not go far. They came flooding back to me as I lay down on my pallet and shut my eyes.

Such heady days of sweet love those had been.

I might have expected to be secretly scorned, discounted as a servant simply keeping the king's bed warm, but Charles must have made it known how he felt about me. Dressed in robes of silk and clad in embroidered slippers, I was relieved of my duties as a maidservant and installed in his chamber. But…I did not know what to do with myself. Clearly, I was not expected to wait on anyone anymore—at least no one besides Charles—but I could not bring myself to consort with those daughters of the lords I had once served. I contented myself with waiting for Charles's visits and dreaming about the babe who was to be born.

There was immense competition for position as nobles flooded the court. The order of precedence was constantly changing. And though Charles wanted me always by his side, I had no position at court. No one was sure quite what to do with me. My presence made life much too complicated.

I tried to excuse myself from most of the official occasions, but Charles would not hear of it.

“Why should you not come?”

“I am not wanted, Charles.”

“I want you, and I am the king, so it's decided.”

In truth, I hated being noticed by anyone for any reason, for I knew what people were thinking. They were wondering why I had been so blessed by Fortune and how long I was going to last. If we had been married, it might have been different, but there was strife on every front. Though Charles had been crowned king by the archbishop of Reims, Odo had no intention of relinquishing the throne. Pagans were threatening every corner of the kingdom. Worst of all, nobles who had pledged Charles their fealty seemed to betray him at every turn.

I had expected we would marry, but with emissaries arriving daily, and meetings that took place at all hours of the day and night, there seemed to be no time, and in the middle of such turmoil, I could see no reason to push for something Charles had already promised.

Since I had seen the new abbess with her lover, she liked me even less than she had at the beginning. At least she let me serve Saint Catherine in peace. But as I went about my duties one day, a new clerk came to take the accounts.

As a pilgrim came forward, he stopped her. “Where's your gift?”

She presented a length of linen to him.

“Is that all?” He was eyeing her mantle as if he suspected she had something else hidden beneath its folds.

“It is all that I have, all that I brought.”

He took it, turned it over once, twice, and then tossed it into the chest. He looked at me. “She can pray, but she can't kiss it.”

“She can…what?” I was not certain I understood.

He had already started questioning the next pilgrim. But he spared me a glance. “She can pray. Can't stop her from doing that. But she can't kiss the relic.”

“Then how can she expect a miracle from Saint Catherine?”

He shrugged.

The woman clutched my hand and begged me for the chance to kiss the casket, but the clerk blocked her from it. Indeed, half the pilgrims that day were sent on their way without a chance to kiss the relic. And only half of their gifts were placed into the basket meant for the treasury. The other half were bundled into a separate chest.

When I asked where they were going, I was told to mind my own tasks. But as he was sorting the gifts, the clerk grasped at something and pulled it from the pile. It was a candlestick fashioned from silver. “My lord will be pleased with this one.”

“And so might
Our
Lord as well.”

“Can't fault the count for getting something in return for his protection.”

“Protection of what, exactly?”

“Of the abbey.”

“From what have we need to be protected?”

He looked up from the candlestick. “From the Saracens. Or Danes. Or the lord's men themselves.”

“The count's men?”

“Ah!” He plunged a hand into the pile again and fished around for a moment. “The abbess will like this one.” He held a plump white pearl between his fingers.

Outrage quickened my heart. “It was not meant for her. It was meant for the abbey!”

“And she's the abbess, is she not?”

When he was done with his recording, he shut up his records. Tucking them under his arm, he strode off toward the church.

“Don't you wish to pray? Or kiss the relic?”

He hardly paused in his step. “Why?”

“For…for peace of mind? Or healing?”

“Don't want anything. The count has given me everything I have need of.”

After he left, I walked about, finishing my work, wondering what kind of world ours had become when everything of value could be bestowed by the hand of men. What need was there for God?

***

The next day, after the pilgrims had gone, the same clerk returned. He placed atop the altar a large golden box marked with crosses and set with glittering stones. Then he picked up Saint Catherine's reliquary casket, lifted the lid, and dumped the contents inside his box.

“You cannot—!”

“The abbess said the reliquary should be bigger. Grander.”

He took the old one and dropped it into his chest. Then he went about collecting fully half of Saint Catherine's candles, hardly pausing to allow me to extinguish their flames.

I tried to stop him. “They are not yet depleted.” Most of them still had a good many days left to burn.

“Saint Catherine doesn't need them.”

“They were given her by the pilgrims.”

“They were given to the abbey.” He wound them in a length of cloth and then moved to carry them off.

“But, where are you taking them?”

“Somewhere more eyes than yours can use them.” He placed them into his chest and gestured for his lad to take it up.

The glow had gone from the chapel, and it had nothing to do with the decrease in candles. “I must protest.”

“Then talk to the abbess.” He tossed the words over his shoulder as he walked toward the nave.

***

Should I say something? And if I should, then what? Even if I should, who would care what I said, and what difference could it possibly make?

A
girl
like
you
has
nothing
to
offer
at
all. To anyone.

The Queen Mother's words were as true now as they had been back when she had first said them.

Besides, how could I fight Providence and ever hope to win?

Only the bishop could approve an abbess. And only an archbishop could approve a bishop, and if the count's daughter was charged with the abbey, then what chance had I of changing it?

What chance had I ever had of changing anything?

Once again, the world had changed around me. I had been swept up in a tide against which I had no purchase. The feeling was familiar, but no less alarming than it had been the last time such things had happened.

***

I had not known Charles's crown would ruin forever the possibility he could ever be rightfully mine. Foolish girl that I was, I thought heaven had blessed us both. Perhaps I could be forgiven such things. I had been so very young.

It had taken the Queen Mother to make me understand.

I had no mother or father. They were killed in a raid by the Danes when I was yet a babe. The queen had taken pity on me, the daughter of palace retainers. I was brought into her household, and I had been raised according to her wishes, as a handmaid. She treated me as a plaything. A bauble or a trinket. Betimes she petted me. Other times she beat me. Sometimes she ignored me completely. Those things she had taught to me—reading, writing, embroidery, Latin, singing—were for her use rather than mine.

Perhaps it was inevitable Charles would turn his attentions to me. I had grown up with the prince, though during that time, due to the circumstances of his parents' marriage, a prince he could not be called. And she ought not to have been called Queen Mother either; the pope had refused to crown her. The king's first wife insisted her own two sons, Charles's half brothers, were the rightful princes and she the rightful queen. But Charles's mother had refused to accept it. In her mind and among her people, at least, Charles was the only prince, and she the dead king's only true wife. The rest of the nobles had laughed at her. They had mocked all of us.

But Charles's half brothers had died in quick succession, and then his cousin had taken the throne, only to be deposed three years later. Though Charles ought to have been crowned right then, the nobles gave the throne to Odo, Marquess of Neustria, by reason of the prince's young age. But not all had been lost. The King of East Francia supported Charles, and the Archbishop of Reims had finally crowned him king. Anything, even our love, seemed possible then, had it not been for his mother.

She took to taunting me. “You can do him no good, you know.”

I had never liked her eyes. They were small and black. And just then they glinted with ill-concealed rage. “I love him.” And by the Holy Mother's veil, though I had tried everything I knew to keep my heart from caring, I loved him still.

“Love! What good is love in a time like ours? What use are promises of forever when he has yet to truly secure his throne?”

“But Odo must give the throne to him, now that Charles has been crowned.”

“
Give
it to him! Mark my words: the only way we'll take that throne is by force. And we'll need armies in order to do it.”

“But there is the Count of Poitiers. And the King of Burgundy. And the Archbishop of Reims.”

“Churchmen!” she scoffed. “If you love my boy at all, you'll see you cannot help him.”

“But I believe in him.” I always had. Even when everyone else had deemed him illegitimate and did not think him worthy of the throne.

“And so do I. But he needs more than a sentimental heart and kind thoughts. He needs friends.”

“I am his most faithful friend of all.”

Her eyes had lost some of their heat then, and her mouth had softened. She had taken up my hand in hers and kissed me on both cheeks. “That you are, and that you have always been, but the time for friendship has passed, and the time for allies has come.” She gave my hand a squeeze. It was a wonder she did not break my bones.

“I could be an ally.”

“Can you bring us armies or empires? By marrying you, will Charles have access to men or horses or weapons? To princes or palaces?”

“No.” All I could offer him was one small girl child. The prince he had been hoping for had been born a princess instead.

“No.” She agreed with an imperious lift to her chin. “You can give him nothing at all. You are worthless. In fact, you are worse than worthless. Your very kindness keeps him from what he needs the most.”

“I do not think that—”

“Clearly you do not. For if you did, then you would understand a girl like you has nothing to offer at all. To anyone.”

My vision shimmered as tears rushed to my eyes.

“And now you are crying.” She put a finger to my chin and lifted it.

I met her eyes.

“It is for you, my dear, to listen and obey. If God in His infinite wisdom has made my son king, He has also made you a servant. Despite his half brothers' reigns, despite your ascent to his bed, I think the lesson is clear: God always gets His way in the end, does He not?”

I gasped.

“How can you fight Providence and ever hope to win?”

“I—I never—”

She patted my cheek. “That's right. You never will.” She drew her hand back and slapped me.

I dropped to the floor, hand to my cheek as I cowered before her.

“A girl like you can never come to anything. It's simply not ordained. Stop trying so hard. If you truly love my son, then give him what he needs the most. Give him his freedom.”

***

I truly believe Charles did not know of his mother's words to me. I never told him, and he never heard her. So far as he must have known, all was well with the world. And still he wanted me to take part in his.

“Come!” Charles had managed to coax me to another dinner, and then he had insisted upon musicians and dancing. Now he wanted me to join him in the dance. The commotion of the conversation and the laughter and the music reverberated from the palace walls.

I shook my head.

“Juliana!” He made a wide, sweeping gesture with his arm. “Come down here. Right now.” He was not as cross with me as he was pretending. There was yet a twinkle in his eyes.

No.
I mouthed the word. There was no use trying to speak it. My voice had always been soft, and he would never have heard me over the screech of the fiddles and the clashing of the cymbals.

One of his men handed him a cup.

He took it, tipped it to his mouth, and drained it in one long swallow. And then he wiped his mouth on his silk sleeve as everyone cheered. “If she will not come”—he paused, and the hall grew silent—“I shall go get her!”

The men cheered and then stood aside as Charles stumbled toward the dais where I sat.

He stopped in front of it, hand on his chest. “My lady love! Do come. Please?”

I did not like it when everyone stared at me. I shook my head.

“Come dance with me.” He held out his hand and started to bow, but nearly stumbled in the doing of it.

“You're drunk.”

He gripped the table and steadied himself. “I am! Which is why you must dance with me.”

The men were starting to murmur now, and I got the distinct feeling that concubines of kings were not supposed to refuse them dances.

“You do not—” He looked into my eyes. “You do not
want
to dance with me?”

“Not like this.” Not with leering, drunken men looking on. A simple circle dance was one thing, but I had not been trained in those more complicated than that. I had been kept too busy fetching things for the queen or reading from her psalter. And there were slippers on my feet, which were far too big, and a fillet atop my veil that kept slipping. I longed to seek the haven of my bed.

“You do not want to dance with me?”

I had said the wrong thing. I ought to have been more clever in refusing him, the way the Queen Mother and his men always were, but I had never known how to say yes when what I truly meant was no. “Come up here. You can sit beside me.”

He leaned forward, toward me. “It is time for dancing, not sitting. I have been sitting for most of my life!”

I leaned across the table toward him. “Then I must not keep you from it. And there are many who wish to dance with you.”

Taking up my hand, he pressed a kiss into it, and then he held it to his cheek. “You must watch me then.”

***

I did watch him. For a while. I watched as the daughter of a marquess smiled at him, and the daughter of a count filled his cup. I sat there as his men flattered him and plied him with drink. I smiled when he looked at me. I tried to smile whenever anyone looked at me, but it left me feeling dull and witless. I sat there a while longer still, while my new fillet pressed in on my skull. I stayed while my feet swelled and my slippers bit into my skin.

I stayed as long as I could, and then I made myself stay even longer, even as the Queen Mother's words dogged me.
Stop
trying
so
hard. It's simply not ordained.

Finally, when I could not stand it any longer, I stole from the great hall, up the stairs to our chamber.

His
chamber.

My maid curtsied.

I nearly turned around, for I did not wish to be waited upon. I did not wish to be observed. I wanted only to be alone.

If
God
in
His
infinite
wisdom
has
made
my
son
king, He has also made you a servant.