The Girl Who Would Be Queen

by Jane Ann McLachlan

  “I will walk in the garden,” I announce. “Please do not disturb yourselves. The Duke of Durazzo will accompany me.” They are too surprised to move as I sail across the room with Charles following meekly as though he has been commanded. What can they say? Charles has been my friend since I was a child, I have grown up with him. Why should we not walk in the garden together? Margherita smiles at me as I pass her, and I have to bite my lip not to giggle.

  I can smell the sea from the gardens, a clean, salty smell that mingles with the sweet perfume of the roses, gilliflowers and jasmine. The natural music of falling water from the fountains covers our conversation as we walk, my hand resting lightly on Charles’ arm. He points out lavender as clear as my eyes, rose petals as fair and translucent as my skin, a pink bud just opening that reminds him of my lips. I cannot speak, I am so intoxicated with his voice. He has never spoken to me this way, yet his words sound familiar, for I have dreamed of hearing such things said to me. By the time we reach the center of the garden and I sink onto the bench I am so dizzy with delight I fear I will swoon. Charles rests his boot on the marble seat beside me and leans upon his knee toward me, very close, so that we need not speak too loud.

  “You must know now why I have asked you to come here with me,” he says.

  I shake my head, unable to imagine what more he might say, but eager to hear it. Unless he is saying goodbye. Unless he has brought me here to tell me Joanna is sending him away somewhere to... to increase her kingdom, when I have none at all, and only one friend, one true friend, my cousin Charles, who cares about me.

  “You are not leaving?” I whisper.

  He looks at me, considering my question. Charles always listens to me and gives me a serious answer, even when I have said something foolish. I wait, holding my breath.

  “I might have to,” he says.

  “No! You cannot! You must not.”

  He tips his head. “Do you want to know why?”

  “No!” There is no reason I will accept. I will have to, though, if Joanna orders it, or if his mother is sending him— My heart stops beating. I gasp, and sway on the bench. Charles cups my elbow, steadying me, but I shake off his hand. “You are going to marry.” I can barely get the words out; my tongue feels thick and clumsy, my whole body, so light and joyous a moment ago, now feels heavy and dull.

  “I am,” he says solemnly. “If she is willing.”

  He is going to marry an old woman, then, a widow, perhaps even older than him; a young bride would have no say. She will be an heiress. His mother, Agnes of Perigord, would never permit him to marry for love. That makes me feel a little better, as I search my memory for a well-connected Duchess whose husband has recently died. Someone my calculating Lady Aunt would choose for her eldest son, for I have no doubt she is behind this.

  “Who is it?” I ask, coming up with no one I would consider good enough for Charles.

  “I cannot tell you before I ask her.”

  I nod. He is a man of honor, his answer is what I would expect. And what does it matter? Whoever she is, he will be hers. She will never refuse him, no one could. I am heartbroken. I will never recover. Even if Prince Jean, heir to the throne of France, is as handsome as Louis of Taranto and as devoted to me when we marry as Philippa is to Raymond, I will never love Prince Jean as I love Charles. I will never again love anyone as I love Charles.

  “Do you... do you want to marry her?” I cannot look at him as I ask it. Please, I think, although I know it is selfish, please say no.

  “With all my heart.”

  It takes me a few moments. I cannot help that, but then I make myself look up at him even though my eyes are full of tears, for I am a princess and one day I will be a queen, and he has always been my true friend. “I am happy for you,” I say. My voice quivers only a little, surely not enough for him to notice.

  “Are you Maria? My dear little cousin Maria? Are you happy that I will marry? And will you be happy to marry?”

  I cannot say yes. He is looking straight into my eyes and we have always been honest with each other. I should tell him yes, but how can I ever be happy with anyone else? I have always loved Charles best of my cousins, but I did not know how much I loved him until these last few weeks, when I began to hope he loved me back. I do not want to marry a French prince now, no matter how handsome he is, so how can I say yes? He will see in my eyes that I am lying. Would Tristan have believed Isolde if she told him she was happy, married to the King?

  “No,” I say. Then I know I should have tried to say yes, because my admission is more than I can bear. I start to weep. I cover my face with my hands and twist sideways on the seat, away from him. I wish he would go away and not see me like this. But this may be the last time I am alone with him, so how can I wish him to leave? I do not know what I wish, until I feel his hands on my arms, raising me up.

  “Would you be happy to marry me, Maria?” he asks.

  “Yes,” I sob. “She will be happy, she cannot help but be.”

  I hear him laugh, a low chuckle, and I feel his arms move across my back, encircling me, and it feels so delicious, so wonderful, that I stop crying and stand still. I am afraid to move, afraid to make a sound, for fear he will remember himself and let me go. He bends his head and I feel his breath in my hair, I feel his hands warm and strong against my back.

  “Would you be happy to marry me, Maria?” he asks again.

  He is mocking me. He knows I am meant for the French prince, and he is to marry a... an old widow! He is laughing at me. I put my hands against his chest and push him!

  He sighs and lets me go. “Maria, I am asking if you will marry me.”

  I stare at him. What does he mean? He is about to marry...I am to marry... He cannot have said what I thought I heard. But he did, I see it in his face. And he is not smiling or laughing as though he were teasing me.

  “How can I marry you? I am to marry the French prince.”

  “Are you? Because I have not heard of any contract. I would not ask you if I knew you were already promised.” He looks at me as though I have questioned his honor.

  “I know Charles, I know that,” I say quickly, and then I am quiet, thinking, he is right. Joanna has not arranged a marriage for me. Our grandfather did not say I must marry a prince of France, only that I should. I am still free. And if I am free, why should I not marry who I want? The idea is so impossible, so astounding, I feel it swirling inside my head as though I am drunk on it. Then I remember: “What about your wealthy widow?” and a worse thought: “What about your mother?”

  “Wealthy widow?” he asks. “You mean my mother? I would not call her that to her face, dear cousin. And she is... fond of you, Maria. She approves of our match.” I must look as confused as I feel, for he adds, “she has already sent a missive to the Pope asking his permission for me to marry whomever I choose.”

  I stare at him open-mouthed, till I catch my breath with a gasp. Papal approval to marry whomever he wants? “He will never grant it.”

  “I think he will. My uncle, the Cardinal Talleyrand de Perigord, has agreed to be our advocate. Pope Clement VI will not have forgotten the Cardinal who secured his election.”

  “You are serious.” My legs tremble. I sink down onto the seat. My heart is pounding; I feel the pulse of it in every part of my body. Marry Charles! I could stay in Naples if I married Charles!

  I will never be a queen if I marry Charles. But what about Isolde? She was ready to trade her King husband for Tristan. Love is more important than a crown.

  Charles sits on the bench beside me and takes my hand. I feel myself falling into his gray eyes so close to mine. “I am only a duke now,” he says, “but I am twenty and a proven soldier. With your resources as well as my own, I will win us a kingdom. And you will be my Queen.”

  “Joanna—”

  “—Will approve, in time. Do not ask her now. She is preoccupied with other concerns. She cannot approve it anyway, she must ask her council, and they will take forever t
o decide. You will be too old to marry before they decide.”

  I look at him, alarmed.

  “We will ask their approval after we have announced our engagement. Then they will have to hurry.”

  I feel myself smile. I am so stunned with the unexpectedness of it all, it is like someone else is smiling, until Charles stands and pulls me to my feet and draws me close to him. “Would you be happy to marry me, Maria?” he asks a third time.

  I fall against his strong chest, weak with joy, and cry, “Yes!”

  Chapter Seven: A Secret Revealed

  “Her Majesty Queen Joanna invites you to dine with her tonight.”

  I look up from my sewing, startled. A messenger in the Queen’s livery stands before me. Was he announced? I glance around my presence chamber. My ladies-in-waiting immediately resume their work, several of them hiding smiles.

  I have been dreaming of Charles while I bent over the chemise I am embroidering, oblivious of the goings-on in my own presence chamber. Apparently everyone knows it—at least they know my mind is elsewhere. I have to stop this before they try to guess where my thoughts go when I leave them. If they have not guessed already?

  “I am honored to take my dinner with Her Majesty.” It is nothing, I tell myself. We used to dine together all the time. She cannot possibly know about Charles.

  Will I be able to keep this secret from her? It is much harder to keep a happy secret than a bitter one. A terrible secret changes you on the inside, twisting your gut and visiting you in dark dreams or moments of sudden shame which you hide instinctively, wanting no one to know. But a happy secret affects you on the outside, lighting up your face in the daylight, making you smile at nothing when everyone can see you, leaping to your lips and begging to be shared. I have only kept Charles’ declaration a secret this week because Joanna is too busy to see me except at our prayers, when Grandmother Sancia is present. Even if she wanted to, Joanna could not talk to me then; our grandmother expects our thoughts to be on God. If God is love, then I am thinking of Him.

  When I am ushered into her privy chamber, Joanna is sitting alone in a chair by the fire. I approach her and curtsy, low enough to show respect for her crown but not too low—she is my sister, after all. It is only a matter of time and fortune before I am her equal in rank as well as birth. She bows her head, acknowledging me, then grins. I cannot help but giggle, for she has caught my intent and turned it into a joke between us. She gestures to the chair beside her and I sit, feeling for the first time since Grandfather died that we are two sisters with our heads together, sharing jokes and secrets between only us. And now I have a secret I cannot share, I remind myself, before I fall helplessly under the spell of our carefree past. And she must have much that she cannot share with me. I look at her more closely. Her face is pale. Even the rosy fire cannot draw blossoms onto her cheeks; instead it forms shadows under her cheekbones that make her face look gaunt and lined—yes, lined, like someone twice her age.

  “You look tired, sister.” I take her hand impetuously. Who has she to talk to, to share her worries, to love her as Charles loves me? Andrew? He is probably the cause of half her weariness.

  I heard yesterday that Andrew and his men killed a man—not a nobleman, thank God, but an honest subject, nevertheless—for objecting when they took his daughter. The news gave me a terrible nightmare—somehow it got turned into Andrew killing my father. I woke up weeping and had a sick headache all morning. “It is Andrew, is not it?” I exclaim.

  “How am I to keep order? How am I to restore peace?” She turns her face toward the fire, but not before I see the moisture glistening in her eyes. I jump up and clasp her hands in mine. There is nothing I can say. The Queen cannot have her husband arrested for causing disorder in her city.

  “Is it not enough to have noblemen fighting noblemen all over our kingdom, and bands of robbers attacking the merchants bringing goods into and out of our city?” Her voice is low and tight with anger. “There are robbers and highwaymen on every road; many of them were honest men before these warring lords laid waste to their homes and their livelihood and butchered their families. They even dare to bring their quarrel into Naples itself, ignoring our Lord Grandfather’s express decree banning the carrying of weapons in our city! And now my own husband...” she closes her eyes. I see the tears between her damp lashes, but when she opens her eyes they shine not with sorrow but with fury “...that stupid, stupid boy! Now he imagines that he is friends with the Count of Minerbino and the Gatti family. And I cannot tell him not to bear weapons, I cannot order my husband’s guard to leave their weapons behind when they accompany him about the city!”

  “Friends with the Paladin?” I gasp, using the count’s feared nickname. Without thinking I drop her hands and step back in horror. “Is he joining the vendetta?” Surely he cannot. It is inconceivable! What will happen if Andrew becomes part of the entrenched warfare between the Marra family and the Gatti family? Will the Marra family extend their cycle of vengeance even to us?

  “He is no part of the vendetta,” Joanna says, her voice full of scorn. “He is too stupid even to understand it. He has merely been convinced that Minerbino is his friend, that the Gatti accept him as one of them. I cannot convince him they are just using him. He tells me I am jealous that he has friends in Naples, that he is welcomed by nobles here, if not by the arrogant Angevins.”

  “By thieves and murderers? By lawbreakers?” But why am I shocked? He has found his own kind. I know that better than anyone.

  “That is exactly what I told him, but he will not hear it. He says King Robert put the Minerbino brothers in jail so he would have an excuse to confiscate their lands and sell them, and put the money into the royal coffers.”

  “Does he want us to let them murder each other in our streets, along with anyone who happens by and gets in the way? Is he wicked enough to want that?”

  “Foolish, not wicked. And it is worse.” She takes a breath to steady her voice. “My councilors tells me Andrew is only repeating what he hears. That the people themselves say King Robert did not care to enforce his laws. That he allowed his nobles to run wild, to destroy towns and cities in their skirmishes, so that he could step in afterwards and fine them.”

  I sink back into my chair. “It is not true!” I stammer. “They loved our Lord Grandfather. They cheered him when he rode out, they cheered us all when we progressed to Santa Chiara on Holy Days.” I remember the smiling crowds, calling out “King Robert the Wise!” and “Queen Sancia the Pious!” and “Princess Joanna, Princess Maria! Huzzah!” as we threw them coins and waved and smiled, everyone smiling. But underneath the smiles...?

  “Can a King believe he is loved when actually he is despised?”

  “Apparently.”

  I look at her bleakly. I want to ask: What do they say of us? But I am afraid. I am not sure I want to know.

  Joanna relents: “They also called him wise and just. He was not despised. They just wanted more. No matter how much I do, they will always want more,” she adds, her voice low, as though to herself.

  I do not know what to say to this. I have a sudden memory of our Lord Grandfather roaring to our Lady Grandmother, something about his laws being openly ignored. His voice frightened me, I was not used to his passions yet, and I began to cry. He glared at me a moment, then he said, “That is right, Princess Maria. Weep. Weep when justice is flouted!”

  “They are wrong,” I say softly, a little surprised, because mostly I believe others’ opinions. But they are wrong about my grandfather; he cared very much about his laws. I feel such relief I look up, smiling. Joanna did not hear me, does not notice my smile. She has not found her way out of her despondency yet.

  “My council tells me the people say I cannot rule. They say if a king cannot impose order, how can a mere girl?” She turns her face back to the fire.

  “Your council says this?”

  I see her stiffen. She has not brought me here to doubt her also. “But you are the heir,”
I add quickly. I realize even as I say it how foolish I sound. There are many eager Angevin heirs, not only the one King Robert named, including King Louis of Hungary. No one wants another Hungarian prince here in Naples. No one cheers for Andrew when he rides out. When he rides with his circle of men down the narrow streets like a black wave from the ocean washing over everyone in their path, no one cries “Hail Prince Andrew, Duke of Salerno!” They want a Neapolitan heir, a golden Angevin heir, but a strong one, a male heir, not a woman ruling on her own, and a minor at that.

  Joanna is clever and able, I tell myself, trying to still the voice inside my head that agrees with them. It is not natural for a woman to rule men. We cannot help but be swayed by our feminine fancies and fears. It is as hard to imagine a woman holding a scepter on her own as to envision her leading men into battle. Charles might rule, he is the eldest grandson of King Robert’s brother John. Especially if he is wedded to a princess named in King Robert’s will as one of his true heirs. I push the thought from my mind at once. I have sworn my allegiance to the crown and King Robert placed that crown on Joanna’s head.

  “What will you do?”

  Joanna looks at me sharply. “I made a vow to King Robert on his deathbed, and so did you.” Her jaw tightens. “I will keep that vow, and so will you. And so will Andrew, by God.”

  “Of course,” I say at once. “Of course we will.” But I am not certain she will be able to, and she must see it. Her face, in the glow of the fire, hardens. “I will prove them wrong,” she says, in a voice I barely recognize. “I will restore order and respect for the law. Naples is renowned for its laws, because of our grandfather. Her citizens, even the nobility, will learn to obey them, or face my justice. I will be the Queen Naples deserves, the Queen our noble grandfather believed I would be.” She looks at me, defiant. Awed by her vision, I nod.

  “Naples will have peace and prosperity under my reign. And...and I will regain Sicily!”