The Battle of the Queens

by Виктория Холт

  ‘Why do we need her?’ asked Urraca. ‘Cannot the marriage be made without her?’

  ‘It is a very important marriage.’ Their mother lowered her voice. ‘Far far more important than that of your sister. Your grandmother is eager that nothing shall go wrong, so she will take you to the Court of France and see you married herself.’

  ‘Does she think the King will not let me marry his son if she did not insist?’

  ‘In these matters, certain details can go wrong and this may spoil arrangements. Your grandmother wishes nothing to go wrong. She is very eager for this match. Therefore she will take you to the Court of France and see the ceremony performed perhaps … or at least make sure that it will be performed.’

  ‘So I shall travel with her,’ murmured Urraca.

  ‘Be of good cheer, my child,’ said her mother. ‘Life will become wonderful for you. You are going to a great country. You have a wonderful destiny before you.’

  Blanca asked: ‘Shall I have a great destiny too, my lady?’

  ‘I doubt it not, my love,’ answered Eleanor. ‘But Urraca’s bridegroom will be the King of France and there are few greater destinies than that.’

  Each day they watched from the castle turrets for the coming of their grandmother.

  * * *

  When she came she was every bit as formidable as they had imagined.

  She came riding at the head of the party and she called out as soon as she entered the courtyard: ‘Where is my daughter?’

  Eleanor the younger was there. The old Queen had dismounted and taken her daughter into her arms. She held her tightly and would not release her for some time. Then she drew back to look at her and declared she seemed in good health and turning to Alfonso she said in a loud ringing voice: ‘And I should have wanted an answer from you, my lord, if my daughter had not been well cared for.’

  ‘My lady mother has not changed,’ said Eleanor; and she kept the old Queen’s hands in hers as they came into the castle.

  What feasting there was! Each day the hunters had brought in fine bucks and they had been baking in the kitchens in readiness for the arrival of the old Queen. Her daughter wished her to rest awhile but she would not hear of it; and she sat at the table while the troubadours played and sang their songs and she took a lute too and with the minstrels sang the songs she had sung as a girl; and it seemed she was very happy to be with her daughter.

  It astonished the girls that she could be so tender; they had thought such a formidable old woman would never look so lovingly on any as she did on their mother.

  She had eyed the girls rather sharply, and when they had both kissed her hand, they felt awkward under her scrutiny. She had asked of their mother: ‘You have brought them up well, have you? Their manners must be graceful. You know the French.’

  My mother said that she did not think even the French would have aught of which to complain.

  At which their grandmother turned her attention from her granddaughters and gave herself up to contemplating her daughter.

  That night the two girls lay on their pallets and talked about the future. They were both sad, yet excited. It was hard to imagine life without each other – yet Berengaria had gone and they scarcely missed her now.

  ‘I wish,’ said Blanca, ‘that we did not have to grow up.’

  ‘And there are years and years ahead of us,’ sighed Urraca, ‘if we are going to be as old as our grandmother.’

  Then they talked of what they thought it would be like at the Court of France and Blanca was sad for she said that all the excitement would be Urraca’s and it is easier to accept change when it is exciting.

  ‘But your turn will come, Blanca. I wonder whom they will find for you?’

  ‘Of one thing we are certain: it cannot be such a grand match as yours.’

  In the next few days they saw a great deal of their grandmother, who made a point of being with them and drawing them out. Blanca had always been quicker than her sisters to grasp a point; her mother had told their father that it was because of her youth and she felt the need to keep up with her sisters. However she had often surpassed them and this sharpness of wit quickly became apparent to Eleanor of Aquitaine.

  When she walked in the gardens she would select Blanca on whose arm to lean. ‘Come and walk with me, child,’ she would say. ‘I need an arm on which to lean.’

  Then she would ask about life in Castile and what their tutors taught them; and she would shoot questions at Blanca and sometimes was amused at the answers she received. After supper when the candles with their cotton wicks flickered in the sconces she would ask Blanca to sing for her; and sometimes she would join in the song. She had a firm voice which belied her years.

  ‘Your mother has taken a great fancy to Blanca,’ said Alfonso to his wife.

  As the days passed it was clear that the old Queen grew very thoughtful. She would sit watching the girls, her brows knit, a strange expression on her face, as though she were trying to solve some problem.

  It was late one night, after the household had retired, that she went to that chamber shared by her daughter and her husband and told one of the guards in the passage outside that she wished to speak to the King and Queen of Castile. She would go to them; all she needed was for them to be prepared for her coming.

  Her daughter was not as astonished as she might have been.

  ‘My mother has never acted as others did before,’ she explained to Alfonso. ‘Many considered her actions strange. But it must mean that she has something important to say to us, since she comes thus by night.’ She then ordered the servants to light more candles and she and Alfonso, wrapped in night robes, awaited the coming of the Queen.

  She came in, as though there were nothing unusual in this nocturnal meeting.

  ‘I have the solution,’ she said as she seated herself on a stool. ‘It has been puzzling me almost since the day I arrived here, because it was clear to me that the future Queen of France should be Blanca.’

  ‘But how can that be …’ began Alfonso.

  The old Queen held up her hand and said: ‘It can well be. Instead of my taking Urraca to France, I shall take Blanca.’

  ‘But it is Urraca …’

  ‘The French King will welcome my granddaughter to France to marry his son. There is no stipulation as to which granddaughter. The girl’s name is of no importance … yet in a manner it is of the utmost importance. That is my point. The French will never accept Urraca. What can they call her? With a name like that she is doomed to remain a foreigner all her life. Blanca. That is different. They will call her Blanche and make her one of them – and with her wit and drive she will be a worthy Queen of France. That is what I have come to tell you, my son and daughter. Blanca shall go to France. We must find another suitor for Urraca.’

  Alfonso said: ‘My lady, we understand well your thoughts and intentions, but we should need time to think of this matter.’

  ‘There is not much time,’ retorted the old lady brusquely. ‘But you may have two days in which to decide and I shall now make my preparations to leave with Blanca. I think from now on we should begin to call her Blanche.’

  * * *

  The weeks that followed were quite bewildering to Blanca – or Blanche as she must now think of herself.

  She had been summoned to the presence of her parents and grandmother and briefly informed that plans had been changed. She, not Urraca, was to go to France in the care of her grandmother in order that she might marry the son of the King of France.

  Poor Urraca had been quite shocked; and, although she had wept at the thought of leaving her home, she now wept because she was going to stay in it a little longer. Blanche understood her feelings and tried to comfort her.

  ‘My grandmother has done this,’ cried Urraca. ‘She did not like me from the start. You were her favourite.’

  Blanche shook her head. ‘How could anyone know to whom such a person would take a fancy? Oh, Urraca, I don’t want to go. I don’t like a
ny of it. It is so … undignified … it makes us so unimportant … don’t you see? Just like counters. You can have one of them … this one or that one … it doesn’t matter which.’

  ‘If you can change your name, why couldn’t I have changed mine?’

  ‘Mine is not really a change. It’s just the translation. You can’t translate Urraca.’

  ‘I wish our grandmother had never come here. I’m not surprised her husband put her into prison.’

  ‘Poor Urraca,’ said Blanche. ‘Don’t fret so. It may well be the time will come when you will see this as a stroke of great good fortune for yourself.’

  Urraca looked solemnly at her sister and then threw herself into her arms. ‘I don’t want anything bad to happen to you, sister.’

  ‘Perhaps it won’t. In any case I shall do my best to stop it.’

  Urraca looked at her sister intently. ‘I think you will,’ she said. ‘I believe I understand now why our grandmother chose you to go to France.’

  * * *

  The old Queen rode much of the time in her litter, for the journey was long and arduous, and even her indomitable will could not command her bones not to ache or the exhaustion not to overcome her. Blanche rode close to the litter on her white palfrey; and there were frequent halts for rests. They stayed at inns and castles and the Queen would lie on her pallet and have her granddaughter sit beside her that they might talk together.

  It was an education for Blanche and she was sure she learned more about the world in those weeks of travel than she had done during the whole of her childhood. Queen Eleanor awakened her to a new world, a world of excitement, adventure and danger; far far away was the sunny court of Castile where her fond parents had guarded her and her sisters from the world.

  Eleanor talked of her own childhood when she had graced her father’s court with her sister Petronilla. What a court that had been! The prevailing passion had been music and the greatest poets of the day and finest composers and singers had flocked there to delight the company. Eleanor remembered summer evenings in the scented gardens while the strains of music filled the air and all listened entranced to accounts of unrequited or fulfilled love – whichever it was the poet’s fancy to indulge. And at this court Eleanor had reigned supreme. There, she had been the most beautiful of women – that was credible, for in spite of the ravages of the years she retained that exquisite bone structure which even time could not change; and as she talked she glowed with an inner fire so it was not difficult to imagine that her picture of herself was not entirely without foundation.

  ‘There are women in this world,’ she said, ‘who are meant to rule. You are one, Blanche. I saw it in you from the first day. Urraca! A pleasant creature – she has some beauty, grace, charm … yes. But not the power to rule. How angry I used to be, how frustrated to have been born a woman. When I was young I used to fear my father would remarry. If he had got a son that puling infant would have come before me. Before me! I, who ruled that court. And I did, Blanche, I do assure you. I ruled that court and because I was a woman, if my father had had a son … who would have been years my junior … he would have come before me. He did not. But that made me none the less resentful. Why should a woman be debarred from rule when she has all the qualities to make a ruler?’

  Blanche agreed that there seemed no logical reason for this.

  ‘I have made it my affair to learn something of your future husband. I have a feeling that he is not unlike his grandfather and if that be so I can tell you much about the boy who is to be your husband, for his grandfather was once my husband. Yes, I was Queen of France and my husband was Louis VII. Yours will be Louis VIII. My Louis … oh, I was fond of him in the beginning. He was a good man, but good men can exasperate, granddaughter. He should have been a churchman. He was made to have been a churchman; he studied for it and would have been if his brother had not been killed by a pig. Yes, a pig, who ran under his horse and threw it so that he died … and that left my Louis to be King. How small things affect the fate of nations. Never forget that, my child. A pig changed the fate of France! Poor Louis, God was unfair to him … He gave him France and me.’

  ‘But you loved him at first, my lady.’

  ‘Oh yes. I loved him because I could do what I wished with him. Then we took the cross and went to the Holy Land – for as I said Louis was a very religious man.’

  ‘And you too, my lady, for you went with him … you a woman.’

  ‘I have told you, child, that a woman is capable of doing most that a man can, and I did not go for religion but for adventure. And adventure I had. Oh, I could tell you … but I will not … not now. There are more important things to discuss. And I am tired now and would sleep.’

  Blanche was disappointed. She would have liked to hear her grandmother’s account of those fantastic adventures in the Holy Land.

  On another occasion Eleanor told of her marriage to the King of England.

  ‘He was younger than I … a fact he never let me forget when there was a conflict between us. It was good in the beginning though. He was so young … different from his father. Geoffrey of Anjou was one of the handsomest men I ever met. Henry didn’t take after his father … in any way. All he had from him was his name, Plantagenet. He had much of his great-grandfather, William the Conqueror, in him and a bit of his grandfather too – perhaps a dash of his mother, Matilda, for he could rage in his fury at times as she could. But he was a king … You knew that as soon as you met him. It seemed then that he was the right mate for me … and so he was … in a way. If only he hadn’t been such a lecher … Now, my child, you have to grow up fast. There is a feeling in the world that it is fitting for a man to roam from his marriage bed and take what mistresses he will, but if a woman should likewise stray that is criminal. I never did accept these differences. I pray that you will have a faithful husband. It may well be. My first, Louis, was a faithful husband. My second, Henry, the biggest lecher of his day. Odd that I cared more for Henry. You will take Louis as a boy for he is no older than you … perhaps a month or two but that is nothing … and if you can keep him a faithful husband you will have achieved much, for it is in bed at night that promises are given and sometimes kept. Try to make sure that those promises are given to you. I talk to you beyond your understanding perhaps, but you will learn in time.’

  ‘You are teaching me much, my lady.’

  ‘Experience is the best teacher,’ replied the Queen, ‘but can be a harsh one. Yet it is so much easier to learn from one’s own experiences than from those of others.’

  On they rode through Castile towards the mountain barrier of the Pyrenees. There the passes were narrow and the cold intense. Blanche became anxious about her grandmother, for the old lady was clearly feeling the strains of the journey.

  Blanche was already fond of her and looking forward with immense pleasure to their conversations. She was growing up fast; she was no longer a child; and she realised that what her grandmother was doing was preparing her for her new life.

  On one occasion they stayed in a small dwelling in the mountains; the snow was falling and it was necessary for them to stay there for several days. There Blanche noticed how the cold exhausted her grandmother and how difficult it was for her to breathe.

  Eleanor did not seem disturbed as long as Blanche was at her side.

  ‘You must not fear for me, child,’ she told her. ‘My end is not far off. I know that well. Why, bless you, I have been close to my end – so it was said – for the last ten years, and as I go on, still it recedes and will not let me catch up. I shall finish this journey. I shall go back to Fontevrault. There I have to pray and be pious for I have many sins to expiate. Nothing would have brought me from my refuge except the needs of my family. I fear for my family, Blanche, oh, I fear greatly. But since I lost my son … my beloved son … there is not so much to live for.’

  ‘Pray, Grandmother, do not speak thus.’

  ‘Ah, there is something between us two, is there not? ’Tis
a pity I am so old and you are so young. The gap is too great for that understanding between us to grow big. Still, ’tis a hardy little plant and it gives me pleasure to contemplate it. Blanche … you are indeed of my blood. But Richard is gone for ever. My son … the son I loved best in all the world. I wish you could have known Richard, Blanche. He was so beautiful. The Lion Hearted they called him. He had no fear of anyone … not even his father. Henry knew it. But he always hated him. It was not only because I loved him better than anyone in the world. Henry couldn’t forgive that either. No one must come before him. But he had taken the Princess Alice … daughter of my first husband Louis … He had had her sent over when she was a little more than a baby to be brought up in the court and to be Richard’s bride. But that lecher … my husband, the King, Henry Plantagenet, took that child to his bed, defiled her and would not give her up. He kept her … his secret mistress while she was betrothed to Richard and he hated Richard and flouted him in every way … because he wanted to keep Alice for himself. There, I have shocked you now. But you will know of these things in time. That was my husband. The man I hated … and loved … and who felt similarly for me. The man who captured me when I would have led my sons against him and made me his prisoner … for years and years.’

  ‘My poor poor grandmother.’

  ‘Poor! Don’t use that word to describe me, child, or I shall say you have learned nothing. Say poor Henry! Poor Louis! But not poor Eleanor. I always got the better of them … as a woman will … for see I am alive to tell the tale … and they are dead … cold and dead in their tombs. Henry lies at Fontevrault … and Richard with him … at his feet. And one day I shall lie there with them. And when I return to the Abbey which I shall do when I say good-bye to you, I shall go to their tombs and look at their effigies and I shall speak softly to them both and it will seem as though they answer me.’

  Blanche took her grandmother’s hand and kissed it.

  ‘And perhaps,’ went on Eleanor, ‘there is enough time left to me to see you crowned Queen of France. That is what I should like. Though Philip Augustus is not an old man – he is hale and well, I believe, and may live for years. But bide your time. It will come, I promise you. And because you have my blood in you, when your time comes, you will be a great queen.’