Recasting OUAT and Captain Swan into the Tudor court, where Emma is Elizabeth I and Killian is a combination of some of her favourites, chiefly Robert Dudley but also Sir Walter Raleigh and Francis Drake. Loose adaptation of history, I'm not sticking slavishly to the real events.
GLORIANA
Prologue
The scandal had rocked the whole of Europe. King David of England, known in his youth as the handsomest prince in the whole of Christendom, had fallen violently in love with a dark haired beauty newly arrived at his court. Mary Blanchard, elegant, cultured, schooled in France and with lofty ambitions to rise far above the rank of a knight's daughter, stoked the king's growing ardour while refusing to become a mere royal mistress, enjoyed for a time and then married off to a minor nobleman when the king's interest inevitably waned. Unused to being denied by a woman he desired and growing more mad with lust day after day, the king swore that he would give Mary what she wanted and make her his queen.
But David already had a wife - Kathryn, the onetime betrothed of his deceased brother James. For six long years he petitioned the Pope in vain for a divorce, while Kathryn wept and Mary presided over court as consort in all but name while still refusing to share his bed. When she succumbed at last and quickly conceived a child, David broke with Rome and created a new church in his own image to bless his new marriage and his new heir. The much longed for son would ensure the continuation of his father's dynasty and keep the English throne from falling into foreign hands.
On a cool October morn the queen was delivered of a daughter instead of a son, and Mary's dazzling triumph turned to bitter defeat as David's grand passion twisted into deadly poison. Her fall from grace was swift and sure, and as a headless body was buried in an arrow chest beneath the Tower a three year old girl with her father's golden hair and her mother's green eyes was left behind, stripped of title and relegated to the status of the king's bastard instead of his heir. Though she had been named for a Saxon queen of old, it seemed that she would never rise to wear the crown.
Fate, however, had other plans.
.
.
.
Twenty Years Later
The white sails were spotted far off the Cornish coast just after dawn broke and the sun rose again over the little island kingdom. Dark hulls rode low in the water, a sure sign of heavily loaded holds, and a red and gold royal standard was raised high on each mast. Word spread, from village to town to city and finally to London and the great sprawling bulk of Whitehall Palace, where the young queen received the news as she sat in her chambers attended by her ladies in waiting. Her white hand snatched the missive from the messenger before the man could even speak and she quickly scanned the words, a smile playing at the edge of her lips as her eyes darted across each line and her thumb brushed the showy signature at the bottom.
"Good news, Your Majesty?" an earl's daughter asked with some trepidation. The queen was well known for her somewhat volatile temper and sharp tongue. But there was no stinging rebuke from the royal hand, the messenger was sent away with a fat purse for his troubles and the dispatch was carefully folded and tucked away in a jewelled casket alongside the queen's most important correspondence.
"The fleet has returned at last. Come ladies, we must go to the chapel and give our thanks, God has smiled upon England this day and we will welcome our brave men back to court in a fortnight's time."
Emma Nolan, Queen of England, France and Ireland, bastard heretic to half of Europe and the most coveted matrimonial prize as yet unwon to the other, rose gracefully to her feet and her ladies all hurriedly followed suit. The royal court was quickly buzzing with the news, lords and ladies all speculating madly about the imminent arrival of the man who had led the queen's ships on their voyage to the New World and back. A low commoner who had risen to command a thousand men and had been named to his post by the queen herself, calling him her Lord of the Sea and speaking of him always with the utmost fondness whenever his name was mentioned in her presence.
The unmarried ladies of the court whispered and giggled behind the queen's sweeping satin trains, for he was also a most handsome man, tall and well-formed and while he had no title, he also had no wife. But then again, Captain Killian Jones had frequently proclaimed that he was wedded to his ship, The Golden Swan, and there was no woman in the world who could compare to the beauty of his vessel.
Except, of course, Queen Emma herself.
...
He entered Whitehall in triumph at the head of his men, dressed as a gentleman in black velvet doublet and breeches, with a jewelled sword at his waist. The queen watched him approach from her seat on the raised dais, candlelight blazing on her cloth-of-gold gown and catching the gems that studded her golden hair, dressed high above her forehead in a style that had taken three maids almost four hours to achieve before she was satisfied. Captain Killian Jones was a commoner but he carried himself like a duke, making a leg when he reached the royal throne with his hat in hand and the hem of his short cloak touching the floor.
The queen's voice rang out over the assembly, "We are most pleased to see you return safely to our lands, Captain Jones, after such a long and perilous voyage."
"A journey I would have made a thousand times over for the chance to bring you pleasure, Your Majesty."
The man's shocking cheek made the older nobles go purple with rage while the ladies tittered and blushed behind their fans. But the only opinion in England that mattered was Emma's, and she inclined her head in a nod and leaned forward with her fingers curled on the arms of her chair.
"Well then. Show me what else you've brought."
He snapped his fingers in the air as he stood to his full height again and the procession began. Chests of gold coins and silver plate, taken from under the furious nose of the King of Spain. Furs from exotic animals not seen in the whole of Europe, and live specimens too in heavy iron cages. They were sent to the menagerie in the Tower to thrill the eager populace, who would come from afar to marvel at the strange beasts. Many costly spices and strange dried leaves that left a potent aroma in their wake when they were displayed to the curious court, who gaped at the stunning success of the campaign the notoriously tight-fisted queen had financed herself from her own private funds. Captain Jones had repaid her investment tenfold and also made himself a very rich man in the process.
The last item of tribute was presented by the captain in a small wooden box carved with a Nolan rose. He knelt in front of the queen and lifted the lid, as the lords and ladies all craned their necks to see and an audible gasp rose in the Great Hall. Emeralds the size of quail's eggs were strung in a necklace, with perfectly matched pearls dropped between each stunning gem.
"Does it please you, Your Majesty?"
A smile passed between them, and the queen accepted the lavish gift at once while the ambitious unmarried lords despaired of ever being able to match the extravagance of the privateer's largesse. But they comforted themselves with wine and the knowledge that Killian Jones might have her smile, but his common blood meant he could never win her hand.
At the queen's order the festivities began, feasting and drinking and dancing that went long into the night. The whole of the court made merry, as the wine flowed as freely as the Thames and the musicians played in the gallery. Highborn young ladies preened under the compliments of the captain's men, and more than one maidenhead was lost that night in darkened chambers and hasty marriages to suitable husbands made soon after. But none of the noble daughters or wives caught Killian Jones's eye, and many tried most avidly. Neither the captain nor the queen made to dance or to mingle among the court and remained on the dais that overlooked them all. Captain Jones lounged insolently at the royal feet, making the queen laugh with his clever, biting wit and daring to drink the wine from her own gold cup when his was empty. His familiarity received no punishment save for a rap on his dark head from her closed fan, but more often she was seen to be tickling him under his chin with the long swan feathers instead. No one dared disturb their intimacy except the Duke of Norfolk, de facto leader of the Catholic nobility that remained in England despite Emma's Protestant faith and dubious claim of legitimacy. His pointed cough and comment on the lateness of the hour to his royal cousin were met with a sigh and a roll of her eyes, but she called for her maids and agreed that it was time to retire.
"I shall hear more tales of your grand voyage first thing in the morrow, Captain Jones."
He bowed and raised her hand to his lips, "As you wish, Your Majesty."
Their eyes met and held for the space of a heartbeat and then he took a step back, watching as she swept from the room in a swirl of her wide skirts and the courtiers parted for her at once as the ocean parted under the prow of his ship. He felt the pull of her wake and longed to follow where she led, they all did. Emma was the ship that carried England on the turbulent sea and sheltered them all from the storms of France and Spain, the spurned Pope and the greedy hand of Rome. A heavy burden for such a slender back, but borne without complaint all the same.
A mouthful of wine remained in the royal goblet, the captain ignored the disapproval from the frowning duke and polished it off with a loud smack of his lips. He handed the empty cup to the man as if he was a servant and strode away to the shadows before Norfolk could even begin to sputter out his indignation.
...
Whitehall comprised over fifteen hundred rooms, from the grand royal apartments to the sparse servant's quarters all connected by a rabbit's warren of corridors, staircases and passageways that took some years to learn completely. The lone woman who wound her way through the confusing maze went unnoticed, she was light of foot and kept to the routes that were left unguarded and unused and all but forgotten. Her destination was a chamber at the end of an unlit hall, and no servant or member of the court impeded her progress or questioned her presence. The narrow oak door opened at once to her soft knock, and an arm reached out and drew her into the room so quickly that even if anyone had been watching they could have blinked and missed it.
A single candle burned in the chamber, and the woman's dark hood fell back to reveal golden hair. It caught the light and slipped through the fingers of the man who had been waiting with impatience in the chamber for her.
"Emma."
Killian Jones pressed his queen back against the door, his eager mouth hot on hers. Her fingers found his shoulders, the fine velvet doublet was gone and his thin linen shirt could not hide the blazing heat of the skin underneath. Her own gown of cloth of gold had been traded for a simple woollen kirtle worn over only a gauzy chemise, the kirtle unlaced easily under his hands and fell to the floor in a heap.
"Two years," she gasped as his lips moved down her throat and his hands spread across the flare of her hips, "Killian, you were gone for two years."
"And not a day went by that I did not think of you."
His head lifted and he traced the bow of her lips with his thumb, "I went halfway around the world in your name, my queen. But my heart never left English soil."
Her hand threaded through his hair and gentle fingers cupped the back of his head, "And mine sailed away over the horizon."
For a moment they simply stood in the small chamber, a far cry from both the opulent rooms she had left behind and the filthy hovel where he had been born. The gulf between their stations was as wide as the ocean, but the girl orphaned completely at fourteen who navigated the lethal politics of a divided country to become its anointed queen and the forgotten boy who ran away to sea and came back at the head of an entire fleet had recognized a kindred spirit in each other and reached out across the divide to share a fleeting touch and then refused to let go.
Chemise joined kirtle on the floor and the queen came to him bare and almost unadorned. He greedily drank in the glorious sight that was forbidden to every other man in the kingdom, the memory of which had tormented him during two long years at sea. He lifted her to the bed, laying her carefully on the feather tick and stretching out next to her with need clawing at his belly and firing his blood. The urge to push her white thighs apart and rut mindlessly between them as if she were a mere dockside whore was strong, but he had come to Whitehall to pay proper homage to his queen and he was not about to stop now.
Callused fingertips drew a map of his voyage on her skin. The rapidly beating heart was England, of course, and he traversed the soft swells of her breasts as he had the swells of the waves beyond the Irish coast. The journey had taken him across the vast expanse of the Atlantic, and his large hand crossed the expanse of her trembling stomach as he murmured his tale into her ear.
"The barrels ran low but it mattered not, for we reached the place at last where the water ran sweet and pure once more."
The dark head lowered and his hair was soft against her fingers, as his mouth found the sweetness he sought below the gold curls. More intoxicating than wine, it spread across his tongue as her legs spread wider, wanton cries on her lips. He fisted the coverlet in his hands and kept at his task, until the queen went limp and boneless beneath him and he sat back on his haunches with a smug smile. She watched as he stripped off his shirt and tossed it aside, but her face creased with a frown at the sight of a new scar that crossed his ribs, a silver line that spoke of battles and blood fought in her name.
"Tis but a scratch, Your Majesty," he said when she sat up and laid delicate hands on the marred skin.
"It is not a scratch. You are to take better care of yourself, I forbid you to die, Killian Jones!"
He laughed at that, "You may order me to do anything you wish as your humble subject, my love, but forbidding a man to die is beyond even the power of Emma of England."
She was still frowning at the wound, "What was it?"
"A French saber," he sighed, knowing she would not relent until he answered.
Her hand spread flat over the scar and her voice caught in her throat, "I do not wish to lose you to a Frenchman's blade."
She saw in his eyes that he recalled who else she had lost to a swordsman from France, as he captured her wrists in his hands and pressed her back to the bed.
"Never," he promised roughly, "You will never lose me, I swear it, Emma."
It had been two years since their last coupling, that frantic, needy hour they had managed before he departed from her newly formed court on the eve of his grand voyage. Time had not diminished their ardour, but it had returned her to a near virgin state and he forced himself to go slowly lest he hurt her in his eagerness for them to be joined again at long last. Emma relished the burn and stretch as her lover claimed her once more, the sweet ache between her legs and the feel of his heavy body atop hers. Her back arched, breasts pressed to his chest as he rocked his hips and she raked her nails down his back. He let out a blasphemous oath at that, shoulders and arms shaking as he strained to hold himself back.
"Vixen," he muttered, burying his face into her slender neck. Her touch turned soothing, stroking his hair, his sweaty back. He longed to find that final satisfaction in her willing body, to see her swollen with his child and proclaim her as his to the whole of Christendom. But he couldn't, their liaison was dangerous enough as it was and he withdrew with reluctance after another handful of thrusts to spend himself in the bedclothes like a callow youth dreaming of a lass instead.
They lay on the bed after, her head pillowed on his shoulder and her hand over his heart. The hour hovered in the nebulous state between very late and very early, and she would have to leave soon and return to the state apartments. Her childhood governess and closest confidant, Mistress Ruby Lucas, would be waiting up for her and would sneak her back into the royal bed without uttering a word to anyone about where the queen had gone in the middle of the night.
"Two years," Emma mumbled into his skin.
"Too long," Killian agreed, "I confess, I was afraid you might have forgotten me while I was gone. That I would have returned to find you wed at last."
The whole of Europe waited with bated breath for her to finally choose a husband from among her many suitors, but none feared it as much as he did.
"Who would I marry? Spain? England would be reduced to a mere vassal state for the Emperor. France? The king is Catholic, and I am not. He is also a child, and ruled by his formidable Medici mother."
He offered quietly, "You could choose an Englishman."
Her head lifted and she stared down at him, "Do you have one in mind, Captain? One who would not cause the whole of the nobility to revolt in protest?"
He had no answer to that and she sat up, sheet wrapped around her nude form and her hair falling loose against her back, "Do not ask me for that which I cannot give. I am married to England first and foremost and the country will not accept a commoner king."
The slim gold band on her finger was the one trapping of her sovereignty that she had not left behind when she came to his bed. It was her coronation ring, the mark of the covenant she had entered into with the land she ruled. Her heart might belong to a single man, but her soul was bound to England. A peasant woman in the fields was free to choose and marry as she pleased, a queen had everything but that choice.
Mistress Lucas silently removed the cloak and the wrinkled kirtle when Emma returned, holding up the heavy satin bedgown for her to don over her chemise with no reproach and nothing but sad understanding in her eyes. The state bed was lavishly appointed with rich hangings and plump pillows, but it was cold and empty. She did not sleep, she simply lay on her back in the darkness with the feel of him lingering on her skin and the sound of his voice in her ear.
"You could choose an Englishman."
His ambition was breathtaking, but then again so was hers, inherited from the mother whose name she never spoke. She'd clawed and scraped her way to the throne when all logic had suggested she would fail, with an older half sister and a younger half brother who had better claims. But Mary and Edward were both dead, and she had prevailed.
Emma of England, Regent and Sovereign in her own right and consort to none. The Virgin Queen, as they were beginning to call her while the throne beside hers continued to lay vacant and unused.
Emma turned her face to the pillow. She hadn't been a virgin since that night at Hatfield House lo those many years ago, when Killian had taken her to his bed and made her a woman in his arms, ruining her for any other man from that day forward. In another life it would have been their wedding night, but in this one she could be his queen or she could be his wife.
What she could never be was both.