The Girl Who Would Be Queen

by Jane Ann McLachlan

  He tells me through the grill that he is pleased, but I know he is not entirely. I have proved that I can bear a strong child, but we need a son. A boy—even better, two boys—will prove our line is stable and secure my inheritance if Joanna dies.

  “I will give you a son next time,” I promise, as I slip his gift onto my wrist. I look down at the bracelet, admiring it, while I hesitate. I have not told him of my vow to Joanna when I thought she was dying. It will sound foolish now she has recovered, and I had no right to make it without my husband’s approval. Finally I simply say, “I would like to name our daughter Joanna.” And then, in a rush, because he has to agree, “It will strengthen our bond. Perhaps she will favor the Durazzo family with an appointment.” I do not need to mention that she has not done so since my marriage.

  “You have reason to think she will be pleased?”

  I blush at his perceptiveness. “Yes,” I say, although I am not absolutely certain she heard me.

  I watch in surprise as a slow smile spreads across his face, and then he chuckles. “By all means we will name her Joanna,” he says, grinning. “What better way to show the kingdom that you are the one who must bear her namesake!”

  “I did not mean—”

  “All the better.” He laughs. “Continue not to mean it, my loyal little wife.”

  ***

  My sister visits while I am still in confinement. “Joanna,” she repeats when I tell her my daughter’s name. She acts surprised, but I am not fooled. I see the trace of humor in her eyes and I know she remembers the promise I made when she lay near to death. The baby sleeps through my sister’s visit, looking calm and angelic, her furious ardor temporarily checked. My sister, therefore, considers the name a compliment.

  “The legate is being recalled,” Joanna informs me, a tone of satisfaction in her voice. “I will soon have complete rule of Naples.”

  Do I still want to be Queen, I wonder, thinking of all the problems my sister is facing: a husband she cannot trust, lords who want her crown, a royal treasury emptied by the fall of our Florentine bankers and the expenses of the legate, a Pope who has publicly questioned her ability to rule, and subjects who have become accustomed to anarchy. I glance at my sleeping child, the daughter of a duke. I have already chosen, and chosen well.

  But you could have both, a little voice inside me whispers. I have a husband I can trust, a man strong enough to deal with those problems.

  Who knows what the future holds? I answer that voice. It is enough that I am happy now.

  I smile at Joanna. She is exultant, eager to assume the challenge, to mold Naples to her vision. Andrew would have given her a child by now, had she been willing. He might never have taken up with the Pipinis if she had invited him into her circle, been a proper wife and a friend to him. He might have ruled with her. This is a leap, I know that better than anyone. Andrew always showed signs of becoming exactly what he is now: selfish, vain, and cruel. But Joanna gave him no chance to improve. She had already chosen what she wanted.

  When we were children, we would hear Philippa whisper at the end of her night-time prayers: May God hear my prayers, may all that I hope for come true. No matter how often we asked, she would never tell us what she hoped for. Your good health, was her usual evasion.

  “How can I know what I hope for until I have it?” she once said, when we had needled her relentlessly for an answer.

  “You will never get it if you do not know what you want,” Joanna replied, the only time I ever heard her contradict the woman she considers her adopted mother.

  “May God hear our prayers,” I say to my sister now. “May all that we hope for come true.”

  “So be it!” Joanna answers, laughing, as sure of what she wants as she was then.

  I look at the daughter I did not know I wanted. “So be it,” I agree.

  Chapter Twenty: A Fall From Grace

  Naples, 1345

  By the time I return to court in January the tension is so great the air fairly snaps around Joanna and Andrew. Andrew’s coronation, previously an annoyance and a liability, has become, with the presence of the Pipinis, a serious threat to Joanna and all who support her. She has received a letter from the Pope returning the rule of Naples to her, and has spent the time since increasing her own alliances within her kingdom, granting promotions, land, and as a last resort, gifts of money, to those already inclined to oppose the Pipinis and the Gatti family. The royal court is made up of her favorites: the house of Taranto, King Robert’s illegitimate son Charles of Artois, and Philippa’s large family. She holds the Tarantos loyal with gifts and position—and by not favoring their rivals, the Durazzos. I suppose she counts on me to hold the Durazzos loyal.

  “Robert of Cabannis,” Charles rants in my bedchamber back at Castle Durazzo. “The son of a fish-girl and an African slave has been made Count of Eboli and Grand Seneschal of the Kingdom! Their granddaughter, Sancia, is to be married to the Count of Marcone! While we receive nothing! Nothing!”

  I wince to hear him name Philippa’s husband, Raymond, ‘an African slave.’ One should speak well of the recently dead, for they may still be wandering the land and overhear. I make the sign of the cross discreetly behind my back, where Charles will not see. Raymond died while I was in confinement, so I did not have to argue with my husband over attending his funeral.

  “She trusts them,” I say reasonably. “They have allegiance to no one but her. She has to give them positions that will enable them to help her.”

  “She should trust us! We have sworn allegiance to her. You are her sister! Are we not better allies than former slaves?”

  He knows as well as I that he and his mother nearly caused a war by abducting me. He knows as well as I that he was hoping she would die so we could take her throne. He knows as well as I why she does not trust him.

  “She is counting on your brother,” I remind him. “Louis is her voice in the papal court. If he can convince Clement VI to rescind the double coronation...” She will trust the Durazzos again, I meant to finish, but I am not certain enough to say it. “She rewards those who serve her,” I say instead. “And Duke Andrew and the Pipinis are as much a threat to us as to the Queen. Anything she does to protect herself from them, protects us also.”

  Charles turns slowly to look at me. “Are they?”

  I stare at him. “Of course they are. You know they are. They are ruthless murderers!” I catch my breath. “What are you thinking, my Lord?”

  He straightens and smiles. “Nothing,” he says carelessly. “You are right, of course.”

  “You yourself wrote to the Duke of Perigord and your Lady Mother to Cardinal Talleyrand, asking them to advise the Pope against crowning Andrew!”

  “I did.” He turns to the door.

  “Are you leaving?”

  He looks back, raising one eyebrow.

  I blush crimson. “I only meant—”

  “I will stay with you tomorrow night. Tonight I want to think. And you need rest. Today was your first day back at court, you are only a week out of confinement.”

  Many women pray for a husband as considerate as mine, I tell myself as the door closes behind him. But I would rest better if I knew what he wanted to think about.

  Each day at court we are like mummers, pretending everything is fine. Charles and I and the other courtiers and ladies-in-waiting listen to music, and dance, have picnics and archery contests and hunt with our hounds and falcons. We smile and laugh and go to Mass and dine merrily in the great hall of Castle Nuovo. Cardinal Aimeric stays on, waiting for the arrival of the Pope’s nuncio, who will ‘advise’ the Queen. In the meantime, no doubt, he is reporting everything Joanna says and does to the Pope.

  Andrew’s men spread lies about the Queen, that she is sleeping with Robert of Cabannis, with Charles of Artois’ son, Bertrand, with Robert of Taranto and his brother, Louis, both; in short, with every nobleman who receives advancements from her. I am relieved that Louis of Taranto is in such a large compan
y, for his is the only name that gives me pause. But there is no truth to any of them, and no one actually believes them. All they do is make Prince Andrew look like a man so eager to disparage his wife that he will falsely name himself cuckold.

  Cardinal Aimeric listens to rumors. Cardinal Aimeric keeps track of the Queen’s generosity to her favorites. No doubt he has spies in the royal court reporting to him on every word we say—and there are many words and more than words between Joanna’s court and Andrew’s. Cardinal Aimeric, waiting for the nuncio who will relieve him, has nothing to do but write his suspicions to the Holy Father.

  In February, Pope Clement VI issues a decree based on the cardinal’s reports. I am in her presence room when Joanna receives his letter, along with Sancia, newly married, and the other ladies-in-waiting. I watch Joanna’s expression freeze as she reads it. Stony-faced, she orders the messenger to send for her advisers. We wait in silence. Even the musician has stopped playing and sits still, afraid to move though he would no doubt love to leave. When the lords she has sent for arrive the Queen leads them into her privy room.

  Philippa arrives. I expect her to go into the privy room, but instead she sits beside Sancia. I have never known Joanna to make a decision without Philippa’s advice. I stare at her, wondering why she is sitting here. I cannot remember our Grandfather, King Robert, not seeking her input, also, or our Lady Grandmother, for whom Philippa’s granddaughter Sancia is named.

  Marguerite of Taranto comes in, her face flushed. She looks around the room, hesitating when she sees Philippa and Sancia. I wave her over impatiently, and withdraw into an alcove. “What do you know?” I ask her.

  “The Holy Father has forbidden the Queen from associating with certain persons whom he believes responsible for encouraging the hostility between her and her lord husband.” Marguerite speaks woodenly, as though she is quoting his missive directly. She glances over to where our—Joanna’s and my—adopted mother sits with our childhood friend. “Philippa and her entire family are named directly. Charles of Artois and... and the Queen’s inner circle of advisors... are mentioned but not named.”

  “How do you know this?” I want to believe she is lying, or mistaken, but why would she implicate her own family, for they are among Joanna’s inner circle?

  “The proclamation is posted on the door to Santa Chiara. I went there this morning to pray for one of my cousins, who died of the fever yesterday. I saw it when I came out.”

  “It has been posted publicly? At the same time as the Queen learned of it?”

  Marguerite nods.

  I glance up. Several heads immediately turn back to their sewing. “Does Philippa know?”

  “I saw her leave ahead of me.”

  “You might as well tell the others, then, since it is public. But quietly.”

  Marguerite nods again. I can see she does not want to, since the Pope has implied that her family, also, is a bad influence. Good. Better that the news is given reluctantly, with the distaste it deserves, than by someone who would gloat at the downfall of others.

  I walk across the room to sit with Philippa and Sancia.

  Hours go by. We hear raised voices from the privy room but cannot make out the words. No one wants to be there, but no one wants to leave without learning what will happen—will there be a major change in the Queen’s advisors? Who will survive and who will lose their positions? Will the Queen defy Clement VI as she ignores Cardinal Aimeric’s demands?

  Servants come up with platters of meat and bread and fruit for the privy chamber, and I tell them to bring a dinner for us. We eat quietly. There is no talking or laughing among the maids and the courtiers; those not high enough in rank to be among the Queen’s advisors have relatives who are. All their fortunes are likely to change today. The musician has slipped away; no one is in the mood for a song while we wait to hear the fate of the highest families in the land.

  Philippa and Sancia are outcasts. Marguerite is also left alone. She would sit with me, any of them would sit with me—even the Holy Father would not tell the Queen to cast aside her sister, the heir to her throne—but I am sitting with Philippa and Sancia, and no one wants to be seen near them, not even to sit with me.

  Joanna will not desert them, I tell myself. They are her mother, her sister. I have always been jealous of Sancia’s closeness to Joanna, of the ways in which they are similar and I am not; their humor and clever retorts, their interest in discussing law and literature, their quick grasp of the political implications of a situation. Joanna talks to Sancia; she explains to me. I would have liked to dislike Sancia.

  But even when I disdained her for her origins, I could not dislike her. She would not resent my condescension; she was humble, as though she acknowledged the justice of my assessment and accepted my superior position over her. She remained as kind and sweet to me as ever. I am ashamed to think how I disdained her and Philippa, my nursemaid, my adopted mother. I am proud that my sister never stooped to do so.

  I do not say any of this to them as we wait for the door to the privy chamber to open. Sancia and I bend over our sewing as if it held some interest for us; Philippa waits in stoic silence.

  The longer I sit without speaking, the angrier I become. How stupid can Cardinal Aimeric be, to blame my sister’s contempt for her husband on the fact that those around her speak badly of him? Do they think every woman is a fool who cannot think for herself, even an anointed Queen? It cannot be that Andrew is a villain and a coward and a fool! It cannot be that he is short and dark and ugly, and lacking in grace and manners! It cannot be that he is incapable of witty conversation or an appreciation of art and philosophy which so delight Joanna, or that he surrounds himself with criminals and preys cruelly on the vulnerable! No, it must be that those who have Joanna’s love because they share her interests, have spoken wrongly against him and turned her heart. No husband could possibly be despised by his wife for his own faults!

  If God gave men a greater intellect than women, He certainly balanced it with a greater vanity which turns them back into fools. I stab the needle into the shirt I am sewing for Charles, pricking my finger.

  Temper only harms the one who indulges it: how often did Philippa tell me that as I was growing up? I take a deep breath. I will wait as calmly as Philippa and Sancia. This is far worse for them.

  Finally the door opens. Robert of Taranto strides out, followed by his brother Louis and their mother, Catherine of Valois, Empress of Constantinople. Marguerite rises quickly to join them. They pay her no attention, crossing the presence chamber with heads held high, their boots striking the floor beneath the rushes as though they were stomping the bodies of their enemies.

  Other courtiers emerge, some grim-faced, some smug. Among those who look pleased, I recognize many who have spoken out against Philippa’s family in the past, jealous of their rise in fortune and power. My stomach clenches. I drop my sewing into the basket at my feet and reach out to clasp Sancia’s hand.

  Philippa’s sons, Robert of Cabannis, named for my grandfather, and Raymond of Catania, named for his father, emerge last. The look on their faces of beaten curs, of men disgraced, makes me gasp. Philippa rises as one about to hear a sentence.

  From inside the room I hear Joanna call them back and I rise also, pulling Sancia up with me, following Philippa even though none of us three have been called. I will watch my sister betray them, this family that has given their lives in service to our family. I will not believe it until I see and hear it myself. I drag Sancia through the open door, my face set. Nothing, not even her refusal to hand over my dowry, has made me so angry, so disgusted, so surprised by my sister.

  Joanna looks up when Sancia and I enter the chamber behind Philippa. Her face is as white as when she was ill, but her expression is set. Her eyes look swollen and puffy, as though she has been crying, which I know absolutely she would never do in front of her advisors. When I look closely, I am right: they are as dry as a riverbed in July.

  “Very well,” she says.
“You may as well be here, Duchess Maria.” She looks at Philippa. “You know of the papal decree?”

  “We know,” Philippa says.

  “My advisors...” Joanna stops and looks away. Philippa was her adviser, and Raymond, and Robert.

  Look her in the face, I want to say. Look at the woman you called Mother when you renounce her. Love is a changing thing, Princess, Sancia’s words come back to me.

  “I cannot disobey the Holy Father. Cardinal Aimeric has not yet officially returned control to me...” she spreads her hands. There is no need to expand on the damage the Cardinal has already inflicted on Naples, and it is no secret that he is watching Joanna, reporting everything to Clement VI. I realize from that slight, defeated gesture, my sister is afraid. What if the Pope changes his mind, and leaves the cardinal in charge? How much more could Naples endure?

  Philippa does not move or speak. If Joanna hoped she would interrupt with sympathy or understanding, that hope is disappointed. Joanna’s ‘inner circle’, the Angevin dukes and lords that make up the rest of her council are not being sent away.

  Joanna rests her hands on the table, looking down at them. She sways, so that I almost step forward before she stiffens.

  “Do not sacrifice good friends for bad ones,” Philippa warns her softly.

  “I must ask you to leave my court. Not to see me again, you and every member of your family.” Her eyes flick up briefly toward Sancia. “Your husband also. No one ...associated with any of you may come anywhere near me.” Her voice is low, barely strong enough to carry across the room, but it does not tremble or break. She does not look up from the table where her hands rest on it, as though they are all that holds her upright.