White Heart

by Sherry Jones

  “But—our love is chaste! We’ve done nothing wrong. For what, then, would he punish you?”

  “Punishment is not his intention,” Romano said. “By removing me, he aims to stanch the gossip. It is deleterious not only to the Church but to you also, and to the king.”

  “Of course it is harmful to me,” I snapped. “Else why would my enemies invent these tales?” An affair with the papal legate was an especially juicy scenario, one that cast me as immoral in more ways than one. “Let me travel with you to Rome. I’ll tell Pope Gregory the truth about us, and make him see how much I need you.”

  “No, my sweet.” A tear fell from his eye and landed on my hand. “His Grace will not be swayed. He demands my immediate return.”

  I pulled aside my bedcovers, inviting him. He slid in beside me, placed his arms around me, and kissed me tenderly for an hour. Who cared, then, about scandal? We had done nothing but, given the penalty we faced, we might as well have done it all.

  He left then, sending Mincia back to comfort me, but I turned her away, telling her I was sick and needed to convalesce in peace. She offered to call the healer, but I waved the suggestion aside, saying I wanted only quiet.

  When she had gone, leaving me utterly alone, I was able, at long last, to cry.

  It is unseemly for a queen to cry. Who said so? A man, that was who, with no inkling of the ways of a woman’s heart—or the sufferings in a woman’s life. Is not a queen human, with frailties and passions? Hugh of Lincoln had denied me my tears; now, Pierre Mauclerc and the pope of Rome—an unlikely pairing—had denied me love. Was anger the only emotion a queen was allowed to feel?

  “Are you ill?” At the sound of Louis’s voice, breaking like an egg on the sharp cusp of manhood, I looked up and thought I saw his father’s ghost. But no.

  “I am sick at heart,” I said. “And with no one to hold me.” I turned away from him, ashamed of my swollen eyes, my tear-blown face, knowing that a mother’s tears are her children’s worry and woe— and then I felt his arms around me, and his young, slender body curling against mine. I turned around and buried my face in his neck and sobbed and sobbed and sobbed.

  “My boy. I thought I had lost you,” I said when I’d caught my breath.

  “I am here, Mama. You are the one leaving, to join the Fontevrault convent.” Tears welled in his eyes. “Pierre de Dreux wrote it to me from Corbeil, before you arrived in Montlhéry.”

  “Is that why you have been angry?”

  “I have already lost my father.”

  “Mon chèr! I never meant it.” I stroked his hair, touched his cheek. “I only said it to Pierre because he was pressuring me to marry him.”

  “But—wouldn’t you like to marry? Your life would be less lonely.”

  “Marry, and risk losing your inheritance? Even the most honorable man, having the Crown at his fingertips, might be tempted to seize it for himself. Oh, Louis—don’t you know, my love? I would do anything for you.” I pulled him close and held him against me as if to meld our bodies into one. “No sacrifice is too great. And indeed, I already have given everything—including my only chance at love—for your sake. The Virgin Mother didn’t love her son more than I love you!”

  I cried again, holding my son, the only man to see me cry since that day, a little more than a year before, when I’d heard about his father’s death. God knew that I had avoided showing my weakness to Louis. But I needed him now. Romano taken from me, where else would I find love if not here, with the flesh of my flesh and blood of my blood? No one else was allowed to me except him.

  Years later, when Louis left for Outremer, he would see me cry a third time, anguished in my certainty that I would never see him again. And indeed, I have not, for he lingers there in pursuit of Jerusalem, leaving me in command of France again. How I long to speak with him once more! I would tell him this: I lied, to him and to myself, when I said I’d given up everything for his sake. I gave up nothing for him. I did it all, I realize now, for myself. I sacrificed love in exchange for the Crown of France—for this is not a queendom but a kingdom, reserved for men to rule.

  “Stay with me, Mama,” he said now. “Don’t go to Fontevrault. I need you here.”

  “Stay with me,” I whispered back. “Here, tonight, holding me in your arms.”

  “Every night, Mama,” he said, “if that is what you need.”

  “I need your love,” I said. “Nothing else will keep the bad dreams away.”

  I never slept that night. Instead, I wept and prayed, with my little man beside me, snoring lightly, as his father used to do. Pierre, with his mocking messages, had tried to turn him against me, but my mother’s love had prevailed. Now that liar strove to turn my people—my children—against me by accusing me of giving to others the prize he had coveted for himself: my virtue. He portrayed me as Eve, the evil one, the temptress. But I knew a better woman to emulate.

  When I’d first come to Paris, the trouvères had praised me for my purity. “White in heart as in head,” they’d sung, playing on my name, which means “white” in French.

  To regain the love of my people—my children—I must claim my name again. As queen, you are mother to your people. Not Eve, no. I would be as the Virgin Mother, as chaste and sexless in my people’s eyes as if I had indeed taken the veil. And Louis, yes, must be as spotless as the Christ if we were to win, and keep, the love of France.

  You must hide your woman’s frailty and show only strength. Today was the meeting of the barons’ council. The time had come, once and for all, to disprove the ugly rumors and shame the rebels’ tongues into submission. I sent Louis to his room and called for Mincia. With a brush and some dark powder she drew a heart around my face, then filled it in with a white paste. Doing so made me unbeautiful, which was my intention.

  A woman’s power lies in her beauty.

  Grand-mère was wrong. My power lay not in my beauty but—yes, as Romano had said—in my pure, white woman’s heart.

  Read on for an excerpt from the next full-length novel by Sherry Jones,

  FOUR SISTERS, ALL QUEENS

  Available in paperback and ebook May 2012!

  Prologue

  I, Beatrice of Savoy, am mother to four queens. What other woman in the history of the world could make this claim? None, I warrant, and none ever will.

  Yes, I am boasting. Why shouldn’t I? Do you think my daughters rose to such heights by happenstance? A woman achieves nothing in this man’s world without careful plotting. I began scheming for my girls before I even held my eldest, Marguerite, in my arms.

  Margi was no ordinary child. She spoke in sentences before her first birthday. But then, she is a Savoy, and we are no ordinary family. If we were, we would not have become guardians of the Alpine passes and rulers of an expanding domain, as well as friends of kings, emperors, and popes. How did we achieve such feats? Not by brutish battles and conquests, but with shrewd alliances and strategic marriages. My children, too, would marry well, I determined, and increase our family’s influence as never before.

  Here is how I fulfilled this vow: I raised my daughters as if they were sons.

  Oh ho! I see shock on your face. Are you surprised also, then, to learn that I called them “boys”? Having taken my schooling alongside five of my eight brothers—in philosophy, Latin, astronomy, mathematics, logic, diplomacy, debate, hunting, archery, even swordplay—I recognized this: knowledge is the key to power. Why do you think men reserve it for themselves, leaving only fluff and nonsense for girls? What good to a girl are needlework, curtseying, drawing pictures, and feigning interest while a man prattles on and on about himself? These endeavors—the essence of feminine schooling—serve only to enhance men, and to diminish women. Wanting success for my girls, I taught them as though they were boys, endowing them with true power—the kind that comes from within.

  When Margi was nearly of age, I enlisted my brothers to find a king for her to marry. Being Savoyards, we plotted. Amadeus, Guillaume, and Thomas pra
ised her beauty, intelligence, and piety in courts near and far, and before every guest they entertained. Meanwhile, I charmed Sordel, the troubadour, to write a song in her honor, then paid him handsomely—with gold and, yes, kisses, but not the prize he preferred—to perform it before the French King Louis IX. Thusly captivated, the king sought Margi’s hand—and before long, my four daughters were queens of the world.

  I would have made them kings, if I could. Instead, I made them mothers of kings. It was the best I could do for them, and for the House of Savoy—for my family—now and in the future.

  Family is everything. Nothing else matters. All other bonds may be broken—friendship, marriage, even queenship—except the ties that bind us to our relations. This is the second lesson I taught to my daughters: Family comes first. To my great sorrow, however, my words fell against their ears and bounced away, like seeds on a bed of stones.

  If only they would heed my admonishments now, and help one another. Instead, they seem intent on tearing one another, and our family, apart. And I? I cajole, and advise, and lecture—and avert my gaze from them lest I cry a weak woman’s tears. O, how it breaks my heart to see my girls suffer.

  Marguerite

  Four Sisters, All Queens

  Aix-en-Provence, 1233

  Twelve years old

  She turns slowly around.

  The great hall smolders, dimly aflame and smeared in an acrid haze. M. de Flagy holds a piece of white silk to his long nose and notes the cheap tallow candles, the stains on the tablecloth, the frayed cuffs of the countess’s gloves. Before him, Marguerite turns slowly, stifling a yawn. She has taken the monsieur hawking and horseback riding, has performed a country dance on her vielle, sung three chansons by Bernard de Ventadour, defeated monsieur at chess, recited from Aristotle’s new logic in the original Greek, and debated, in Latin, whether time has a beginning, she agreeing with The Philosopher that it does not, because God, the source of time, is eternal. M. de Flagy, seized by a fit of coughing, hurried from the hall and missed her father’s challenge: Does time, then, have no ending? Does it exist in the realm of the eternal, or is time an earthly function? If earthly, then how could it be without beginning, God having created the Earth?

  Now, for her final performance, Marguerite endures the stranger’s gaze on her face, her hips, her bosom straining indecently against the too-small gown. As Queen of France, her maire has said, she would never wear ill-fitting clothes again.

  His hand snakes out. “She appears to be perfect, but I have not inspected her teeth.”

  She steps back, out of his reach. “My teeth are strong, monsieur. And their bite is sharp.”

  Papa grins, but Mama is not laughing. Her eyes snap: All I have taught you, for naught! Marguerite’s skin dampens; the room is suddenly too warm.

  “She is but twelve years old,” Mama says. “Her tongue is not yet tamed.” The countess places a gloved hand on M. de Flagy’s arm, dazzles him with her practiced smile. Monsieur bares his own stained and crooked teeth.

  “Your daughter has spirit, non? Très formidable. If she marries King Louis, she will need it to contend with his mother.” He winks at Marguerite. “ Ma belle, you may need those sharp teeth, as well.”

  Music rises from the floor: rebec, guitarra morisca, pipes, small drums. A minstrel in bright clothing and a red beard sings the Kalenda Maya, meant to please the countess with its words of love for a different Beatrice—but, as she whispers to the visitor now, his grating voice only reminds her of another, more memorable, performance, when the composer Raimbaut de Vaqueiras sang it in this very hall. That was years ago, she does not add, before attacks and sieges depleted the treasury, when troubadours and trobairitz flocked to Provence for endless merrymaking, the wine flowed too abundantly to need mixing with water, and the hall glowed with the light of the finest beeswax candles.

  When the song has screeched to its end, Mama hastens her to the nursery, giving her arm excited squeezes. “You have charmed him! Well done, Margi. As queen, you can save Provence.”

  The nurse, Madeleine, tuts over the hole in Marguerite’s gown as she undresses her. Mama shrugs: Surely M. de Flagy did not notice such a tiny flaw. Yet her forehead wrinkles as her other daughters pile into a chair with her. She wants queenship for her daughter more than Marguerite wants it for herself.

  “Was he looking at Margi’s gown, or what was inside it?” Eléonore says. Too big for Mama’s lap, she sprawls there, anyway, forcing Sanchia to the floor, at their mother’s feet. Little Beatrice careens about on plump legs, snatching rushes from the floor and throwing them down, laughing each time as if she had done something clever.

  Madeleine plaits Marguerite’s hair while the countess tells her tales. “Your sister was as calm as the spring mist and as bold as Lancelot.” Absently she caresses Sanchia’s golden hair. “King Louis and his mother will hear only praise for Marguerite of Provence.” Why, oh why didn’t Marguerite bite the monsieur?

  “I would make a better queen,” Eléonore says. “I am stronger than Margi, and a faster runner. And I am a better huntsman.”

  And Eléonore wants to leave Provence. And she doesn’t despise the French, as Marguerite does.

  “Be patient, Elli!” Mama says. “You are only ten years old—too young for marriage.”

  Marguerite laughs. “Telling Elli to be patient is like commanding an ass to gallop.”

  “Mama! Did you hear her call me an ass?”

  “You’re as stubborn as one,” Marguerite says.

  “Why wouldn’t I be stubborn, when I know I am right?”

  “If you want to be a queen, Elli, you must learn to control yourself,” Mama says. “In that regard, your sister is far ahead of you.” She does not mention Marguerite’s rude remark to M. de Flagy.

  “Mama,” Sanchia says, turning on the floor to tug at their mother’s gown.

  “Except when a tart riposte lands on her tongue. Then she cannot wait to spit it out,” Eléonore says.

  “How would you know the flavor of riposte?” Marguerite says. “Nothing but boasts ever land on your tongue. Apparently, you find them every bit as difficult to swallow.”

  “Mama.” Sanchia tugs at the countess’s gown again. “Is Elli going to be a queen, too?”

  “Boys!” Mama’s admonishment rankles Marguerite. Why must she refer to them as boys? Does she wish they were sons instead of daughters? “The time for arguing—and for competing, Elli—has come to an end. Margi is poised to become a queen. And not just any queen, but Queen of France, the richest and most powerful of kingdoms. We must help her, not fight with her.” The smile she sends to Marguerite is like a sunbeam. “And she will help us, in turn.”

  “But I like to fight with Margi,” Eléonore says. “I always win.”

  “You wish that were so,” Marguerite says.

  “Your uncles and I used to fight, too,” Mama says. “Since I married your paire and became Countess of Provence, we have worked together. That is the Savoy way. Now, with Margi’s marriage to King Louis, the house of Savoy will rise like a shining star to the highest spot in the heavens. We shall rise with it, and all our family, and your children and grandchildren, if God is willing. If we help one another.”

  “Is Elli going to be a queen, too?” Sanchia says again.

  “I shall be queen of the world!” Eléonore wriggles out of Mama’s lap and lands on her feet. “I won’t be content with a kingdom as small as France. I’ll have an empire.” She folds her arms across her chest. “And, don’t worry, Mama, I’ll give castles and lordships to all my family.”

  Marguerite laughs. “And who will be your emperor? Will you join the harem of Stupor Mundi?” Astonishment of the World: It is a fitting title for Frederick II, whose blasphemous remarks—calling Christ a deceiver!—and worldly lifestyle have made the pope of Rome’s jaw drop in not only astonishment, but outrage.

  “Whichever king I marry will become great. I will make sure of it.”

  “Are you going to make
Elli a queen, too, Mama?” Sanchia says.

  “Not I, but your uncle Guillaume,” Mama says. Eléonore gasps. Mama smiles. “He and Romeo foresee crowns on all your heads. They have sworn to make it so.”

  “Four sisters, all queens!” Eléonore dances about. “Who has ever heard of such a thing?”

  “Three sisters,” says Sanchia. Worry wizens her eight-year-old face. “I’m going to take my vows at Ganagobie.” Eléonore rolls her eyes: Sanchia has talked of nothing else since last month, when Mama’s cousin Garsende joined the Ganagobie cloister in a ceremony so moving, it made even Mama cry.

  “My pious little peapod, as gentle as a newborn lamb,” Mama says to Sanchia. “You would make a splendid nun, were you plain or deformed.” Sanchia has hair the color of spun starlight, eyes as black as the night sky, a dimple in her chin, and a mouth like ripe cherries. To hide such beauty would be a shame, Mama says, for it would certainly attract a fortuitous marriage.

  “Erase all selfish thoughts from your heads,” Mama says now. “Family comes first. As women—and as queens—your loyalties must lie with your sisters, your uncles, and your parents. We are your foundation. We are your strength.”

  She is speaking to Marguerite, who looks down at her hands. Does Mama know of the pain that stabs Marguerite’s chest when she thinks of leaving Provence? Most likely, she does not care. The Count of Toulouse lurks ever like a shadow over their door, ready to strike. He would take for himself the flowering fields, the shining mountains, the glittering shores of Provence—and the star of Savoy would drop lower in the sky than ever before.

  “In our world, fortunes are gained and lost in the blink of an eye.” Mama snaps her fingers. “As you’ve seen, to rule even a small county such as Provence brings peril. Think of the difficulties when you are a queen, and far from home! Danger lurks not only outside your domain, but also within, even in your own court. Women envy you, especially if you are beautiful. Men resent your power over them, especially if you come from a foreign land. This is why you need your family’s help.”