Read Online To Be Queen by Christy English - Free Book Online

reach us in time, the walls of my father’s palace would fall, and my body would be forfeit.
    Rape did not frighten me. All women faced such danger every day of their lives. A coronet was no protection from that. I feared worse, for with my body would go the Aquitaine. Some brigand might make himself duke if I could not complete the contract to wed the king’s son.
    I was driven from these thoughts by the sound of my sister crying. I had not spoken, but she had seen the look on my face, and had read the words of the priest’s letter. It was the only time I ever regretted that Papa had taught her to read Latin.
    I heard Petra’s screams before I felt her clutching me, her small hands fastened on my gown. I came to myself, looking down at the blond braids that bound her hair. The letter that held my father’s death lay discarded on the stone walkway where I had dropped it. I lowered myself to a bench close by, and brought Petra with me. As my sister wept, the last of my childhood bled out of me with her tears. I felt it go as I sat and stroked her hair.
    The plan of action that my father had laid out for me began to form in my mind. I clung to it, as if it were a scrap of vellum with my father’s last words written on it to guide me. My fear lay down, like a dog that would look to bite me later.
    I met Amaria’s eyes. She stood by, silent as she always was, ready to do my bidding. She was only one year older than I, but she was steady, a high rock in the world when the waters rose to drown me. I held fast to that rock, and took strength from her.
    â€œSend for the archbishop,” I said. “He must know at once.”
    She did not hesitate, but took up the letter I had dropped.
    No doubt the archbishop had heard already of my father’s death, for once such news reached the keep, it would spread through the city like wildfire in dry summer grain. But I must begin as I meant to go on. I must summon the archbishop to me. If he acknowledged me as duchess and as my father’s heir, he would come when I called for him.
    Amaria left at once. Guillaume had begun to weep when Petra did, but he still knelt by me, though his knees trembled with exhaustion. He reached into the pouch at his belt, and brought forth my father’s signet ring. Its ruby gleamed in the light of the dying sun. I raised it above my sister’s head, and looked at it in the fading light. The last time I had seen it, that ring had been on my father’s hand. It was too large to fit even my middle finger, so I slid it onto my thumb.
    The archbishop came to me in my grandmother’s garden instead of sending a clerk to fetch me back to him. With that one gesture, he confirmed me in my state. That more than anything told me I was duchess now: the sight of my father’s proud churchman, bending one knee to take my hand in his. He kissed my father’s ring, and met my eyes.
    â€œI am sorry, my lady. I am sorry for your loss.”
    For this man to humble himself before me spoke more of his love for my father than anything else he might have done. I pressed his hand, unable to speak, for a rock had lodged in my throat. I had to swallow hard to discard it.
    Petra still clung to me. Her sobs had quieted, but her tears ran down her cheeks, raining on the satin of her brocade gown. When I looked at my father’s friend, my eyes were dry.
    â€œHe has been buried at the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Spain,” Archbishop Geoffrey said.
    Grief gave way to fury when I saw that our enemies had stolen even his body from me. I looked at Guillaume, who still knelt before me, and at the archbishop, who waited to see if I would falter. Guillaume looked frightened; I saw that he had feared my anger too much to give me this news himself.
    It was Guillaume I spoke to first. In spite of his fear, he had served me well, when he would have been well paid to hand the news of my father’s death to another. “Go