The Sister Queens

by Sophie Perinot

  “Yes, but his immortal soul and his kingdom would be better served if he spent more time on his knees and less time between yours.”

  Next to me the music stops, and Elisabeth covers her mouth with her hand in shock at such a blunt and coarse reference to my marriage bed. I myself am undone by it. I blush crimson and begin to weep both in anger and in shame.

  “Your Majesty, I am your son’s wedded wife, and it was you who chose me for his bride. Surely a man may lie with his wife without accusations of depravity. Is it not my duty to provide him comfort thus and to furnish heirs of his body?”

  “Are you with child then?”

  “No.” I am stung by the question although I have been a married woman only half a year.

  “Then speak no more of ‘duty’ until you have done yours. Keep your mind on God that you may be a fitting vessel for His Majesty’s sons. Only a woman who gives herself to her husband in fear of God shall find her womb quickened, whereas the woman who, like a strumpet, revels in the animal pleasure of the event is odious to the Lord and unworthy to be called mother. I will send you a hair shirt this afternoon that you may do penance for your carnal nature. And Louis likewise. And make no mistake, lady, I shall expect proof that you wear it when we dine this evening.”

  Then, without another word, the dragon turns on her heels and lets herself out of my apartments by the main door.

  CHAPTER 3

  My dearest Marguerite,

  Everything was settled with the English king with surprisingly little difficulty, and soon I will be on my way to him. On my way to you. I do not dare confess to anyone save yourself that I look forward to my arrival at Paris most. Not that I mean to insult my newfound lord by this. He is a great man and a king, and I am suitably honored at the prospect of becoming his queenly wife. But I do not know him and do not love him, whereas you are as my own heart. How I have missed you these last eighteen months.

  Yours faithfully,

  Eleanor

  I have grown since you saw me last, and I believe I am now as tall as you are.

  ELEANOR

  NOVEMBER 1235

  CASTLE OF TARASCON, PROVENCE

  “Marguerite had more gowns.”

  My mother, looking about at the great number of trunks in the process of being packed by an equally large number of servants, draws her brows down sternly and sighs in disbelief. But she will have to do better than that if she thinks to shame me into silence.

  “And shoes. I distinctly remember my sister had two dozen pairs. I have only eighteen.”

  “Eleanor! Pro es pro! Your father spent a mighty sum to see you married in style. You will have more than three hundred in your train when you set out in the morning, and yet you complain. If the King of England could hear you, what would he think? Perhaps he would reconsider his choice of bride.”

  “It is too late for that—the verba de presenti were exchanged yesterday. Henry of England has committed himself, and so have I.” I try to sound nonchalant even as I remember that my future husband went so far with Joan of Ponthieu, only to turn back.

  Mother, no doubt thinking the same, shakes her head again. Then her eyes, without warning, drop to the hand I have half hidden behind me. “What do you have there?”

  I know that I am caught, but I refuse to be embarrassed. “Only the shoes I plan to wear tomorrow.” I open my eyes wide, trying to keep my tone guileless like that of my sister Sanchia.

  Mother’s suspicions are not assuaged. “Let me see.”

  I bring the slippers out from behind me and hold them forward. A look of bewilderment passes over Mother’s face. Whatever she was expecting, it was not this. “Those are not yours.” She pauses, her eyes momentarily glassy as if, rather than seeing what is before her, she is trying to glimpse the past and remember where she saw the shoes before. Then her head snaps up, and she looks me in the eye. “Those are Marguerite’s shoes, made for her journey to France.” Reaching out, she touches the pointed toe of one of the doeskin slippers—as if by touching the shoe she can better recall the daughter whom she has not seen in more than a year and a half.

  “I did not take them,” I insist defiantly. “She gave them to me.”

  “She would.” Mother’s smile is sweet yet touched by a certain sadness. Her voice catches as she continues. “Will you return them when you see her?”

  I glance at the shoes, hard worn since I saw my sister last. How beautiful they were. How they have changed. Marguerite would not recognize them. Will I recognize her? “No,” I reply, drawing them back against me until they are hidden in my skirt, “they are not grand enough for the Queen of France. But I will give her the gifts from Father and yourself.” Perhaps, I think, those will not be grand enough either. For a moment my doubts get the better of me. Then I swallow them. Marguerite may be a mighty queen, but she is still my sister.

  GRAY, COLD, AND WET; THAT is how the city of Paris appears, looming not far in the distance. That is also how I feel, riding beside Uncle Guillaume.

  “This is English weather,” he remarks offhandedly. It is a comment hardly calculated to make me feel better. I pull my cloak closer and grit my teeth. All the pleasant hours passed as a guest of Thibaut of Champagne, King of Navarre, seem ages rather than days ago.

  “Then I no longer want to go to England.”

  My uncle barks a laugh before looking more closely at me and seeing I do not laugh as well. Considering me, he says, “London is not the frontier you think it.”

  “Is it Paris?” I challenge.

  “No. But with God’s grace and Savoyard help, perhaps it can be made so.” It is my turn to laugh and my uncle’s turn to be serious. “Listen, Eleanor. Henry of England waits to be pleased. He wants to be pleased. Your vigorous, fiery temperament can be captivating when you make it your business to be so. Capture the king’s heart, and I will help you do the rest.”

  Peering at my uncle through the increasing drizzle, I feel my spirits lift slightly. He is a man capable of many things—of anything. Am I not blood of his blood? Am I not as ambitious as my Savoyard uncles? As beautiful as my Savoyard mother? As capable as my sister the French queen? “Never fear, Uncle. I will make Henry of England feel as young, handsome, and loved as Louis of France.”

  “One thing is sure, your need to equal your sister in everything will be an asset to us in this undertaking.” Uncle Guillaume’s comment catches me off my guard, like an unexpected slap. I said nothing of my burning desire to be thought Marguerite’s peer, but he knows me well—too well. “Just remember, Eleanor, your sister is more than a stick to measure yourself against. She is an ally. She worked to secure your safe passage through her husband’s territories, and she pays a price for your marriage to the English king.”

  “A price?” I am intrigued. Though my father and uncle saw fit to tell me much about the negotiation of my marriage, admonishing me that such was a part of my political education, I cannot see how my becoming Queen of England directly affects my sister, except perhaps to make her feel more superior than usual.

  “Blanche of Castile uses your alliance with her son’s rival to challenge your sister’s loyalty and question her trustworthiness. She thinks that Henry of England desires to regain Normandy, which was lost by his father, and that Provence and Savoy will help him get it.”

  I feel suddenly colder, and not because of the weather. No, this cold comes from within. It is the sort of icy feeling that strikes me when I am very angry. How dare that woman, that masca, cast aspersions on my sister! I may not think Marguerite perfect, but no one outside the family is entitled to suggest otherwise. Perhaps my Henry should take Normandy back just to teach Blanche of Castile better manners!

  My Henry. I have never thought of him that way before. I scarcely allow myself to think of him at all, except abstractly as the King of England and the reason that I will wear a crown. Tucking my chin down against a gust of wind and raising a hand to pull my hood as far forward as I can, I wonder if it was so for Marguerite
as she traveled to meet Louis for the first time. Did she worry that she would be repulsed at first sight of him? That they would have nothing to talk about either in company or alone? That she would color scarlet when faced for the first time with the sight of a naked man? About the physical act of being taken to wife?

  No. I cannot imagine that she did. Louis of France is twenty-one years old and the subject of story and song, rumored to be so handsome that no woman can resist him, and so virtuous that they have no need of trying. My betrothed husband is twenty-eight. Is it any wonder then that I feel envious of my sister even as I am eager to see her?

  When we reach it at last, the French royal palace is warm, thank God. Or maybe it is only the absence of rain that makes it feel warm. We pass through the doors with some difficulty as servants swarm in and out around us, managing our baggage and horses. I may be out of the rain, but I am still wet—wet through. I cannot believe that I must present myself to the King of France and my sister for the first time looking like a drowned rat.

  As I raise a self-conscious hand to my hair, Uncle Guillaume says, “Do not make yourself uneasy. This is not your formal reception. That will happen later. There will be plenty of time to recover and bedeck yourself in something splendid before the eyes of the French court are upon you.”

  Before I can make any answer, I realize that my sister’s eyes are on me now. Passing through a vaulted arch, I see her just ahead, and beside her the king. Holy Mary, he is handsome, and she is grand. She looks like Mother, not in her features perhaps, as she has always been a good mix of Savoyard and Provençal, but in her expression and in her bearing. She seems so much older than two years my senior. She is as serene and radiant as any queen I have ever seen in a manuscript illustration. Instead of just feeling damp and miserable, I suddenly feel childish and tongue-tied.

  “Your Majesties.” My uncle’s voice brings me to my senses, and, along with him, I sink before my sister and her husband—the King and Queen of France.

  “Your Excellency, Lady Eleanor, we are happy for your safe arrival.” The king’s voice is formal, his expression correct in every particular, but this was not what I imagined, though I can scarce say what I did expect, as I rode the many leagues from Provence. My eyes sting as I turn them to Marguerite.

  When they meet hers, something remarkable happens. Heedless of her rank, her beautiful clothing, and the fact that I am dripping wet, Marguerite springs forward and throws her arms around me. There is no more Queen of France. There is only my sister.

  MARGUERITE AND I ARE CURLED close before her fire, silent and content on the third evening after my arrival, when I finally have the courage to mention it. Something I have never said aloud to anyone—not to Mother, not to Uncle Guillaume during our travels. “I am marrying an old man.”

  My sister, who has been gazing at the flames, looks up, startled. “Eleanor, no. You are the English king’s first bride. Surely he must be a man in his prime.”

  “He is not ten years younger than Father.” My voice unexpectedly comes out in a whisper, as if all the air has been choked out of me by my fears.

  Marguerite sucks in her breath audibly. This is not the reassurance I hoped for. “Still,” she says, her voice with a note of forced cheerfulness, “he is not thirty, and did you not tell me by letter that Uncle Guillaume calls him a ‘fine man’?”

  “You have the handsomest man in Christendom!” I feel my cheeks grow warm as I say so. Over the past days I have been forced to admit to myself that the King of France is all my uncles and my sister said he was. He is so handsome that he appears to shine. He dances better than anyone I have ever seen. Everything he does, everything he says, conveys an easy, kingly authority. My stomach tightens into a knot. Perhaps I should have said nothing to my sister.

  “This is not about what I have.” The sympathy and superiority in my sister’s eyes are maddening. “All our lives you have measured what was yours against what was mine—everything from your complexion to your newest cloak. It has to stop. It will only make you unhappy.”

  That does it. I find my voice and loose my anger. “So,” I cry, springing from my chair to stand before Marguerite, “you believe that you have already won! That your husband, your palaces, your kingdom are all destined to be better and greater than mine!”

  My sister, looking up at me, blushes.

  I am glowering, but I don’t care. My sister deserves to feel uncomfortable. “I may have been born second, Marguerite, but I will not remain behind—not in honor and not in dignity. England will not be second to France!”

  “I do not want to outdo you,” Marguerite protests somewhat feebly. “I only want you to be happy. If you are not, I will grieve. I could never take pleasure in the disappointments of others.”

  Her ludicrously misplaced piety breaks the back of my anger. I take a step away from her and laugh, or rather snort, something I am prone to do despite my mother’s constant reminders that it is unbecoming. “Never? Oh no, Marguerite, I will not let you paint yourself the saint! I well remember the times you bested me at hawking and reveled in the fact. And all the times you thought that you bested me in lessons—”

  “Thought?” Marguerite rolls her eyes. “Did. But though I am the better student, we will both be great queens.”

  “You sound like Uncle Guillaume.” I return to my seat. “Before I left, I heard him talking with Father. ‘Two queens,’ he kept saying, ‘four daughters, and two of them queens.’”

  “Two of us queens together.” Marguerite reaches for my hand, and I give it to her willingly. “And if your Henry is not young, he must certainly be kind and more than a little enamored of you. After all, he made no fuss about your dowry.”

  “True. I just hope he is not very ugly”—I scrunch up my nose in a manner calculated to make my sister laugh, even though the fear that I feel, I feel in earnest—“or I might have to close my eyes every time he kisses me.”

  My time at Marguerite’s court is so full of delightful activity and abundant opportunities for sisterly companionship that I find myself thinking less and less frequently of my husband-to-be. There are days when I do not think of Henry of England at all. Days when I do not worry about kissing him. Then, when I have been with Marguerite nearly a month, a letter arrives from my groom. It is addressed to my sister, not to me.

  “Listen to this, Eleanor.” Marguerite is in my rooms, having interrupted my evening’s toilet to share the content’s of my betrothed’s missive. “‘I hope you will not consider me bold, but since the illustrious bishop-elect of Valence has gone on a matter of business to the court of Emperor Frederick, Your Majesty seems best situated to send me news of my intended, your dear sister the Lady Eleanor. We pray she is well despite all this damp weather.’” Raising her eyes from the paper, Marguerite says, “He is very attentive.”

  I turn at the dressing table, frustrating Agnes, my childhood nurse, who is trying to plait my hair, beguiled in spite of myself by my soon-to-be husband’s concern for me. “He is well-informed too,” I answer, “for surely our uncle made no mention of his travels to His Majesty. Not after admonishing us to avoid the subject.”

  Marguerite nods in agreement, then lowers her eyes and reads silently for a moment. “Your groom grows impatient,” she remarks, placing her finger upon a particular passage. “‘We approach Your Majesty affectionately, asking that you speed our lovely affianced bride on her way to her new home in England. We have been eagerly awaiting her since our marriage contract was confirmed at Vienne.’”

  Marguerite sets the letter down before me so that I can read the rest myself. But before I can complete a single sentence, she speaks again. “I think you must continue your journey as soon as our uncle can return to accompany you.” Her voice is agitated, but I cannot imagine why. She paces away and then turns back to face me, wringing her hands slightly. “We cannot risk the English king’s impatience growing into something more—into a search for another bride.”

  “Marguerite, calm
yourself. Surely there is no need for exaggerated concern. I believe I will reach England before His Majesty tires of waiting.” My response is meant to set Marguerite laughing, but instead her shoulders fall and she gives a deep sigh. Turning completely in my seat despite Agnes’s clucking tongue, I ask, “Whatever is the matter?”

  “I …I will miss you.” My sister’s face hangs like that of an old woman. “The last weeks have been like a return to Provence.”

  “Do you wish yourself back in Provence?” I ask. I cannot believe what I am hearing. Much as I was sad to leave home, and much as I have enjoyed my sojourn in France and the respite it has offered from my apprehensions over my upcoming marriage, being with my sister has awakened a burning desire in me for my own court. I am convinced our destinies lie in being queens. I would not go back to being only a count’s daughter.

  “No,” she says, “but I wish I had a sister here.”

  I know what she means. Her new sister, Isabelle, is the strangest little thing. I asked her if she liked my gown at the banquet celebrating my arrival and complimented hers, and, unbelievably, she told me that such vanity is offensive to God. I hope that my own new sister, with whom, auspiciously, I share a name, will be more to my liking.

  “You will always have me,” I say. “Wherever I go, for as long as I live.”

  THE WINTER WINDS, IT SEEMED, wished me in England as urgently as His Majesty. As a result, my ship touched ground earlier than anyone expected. I was sincerely glad of it. This sea voyage was my first, and I did not enjoy it. From the moment we left Wissant, Agnes and I took turns being sick. I thought my stomach could not feel more agitated. I was wrong. As we pass through the gates of Canterbury, word comes that the king is already in the city.

  “He must have left London before we landed, for he traveled more than three times our distance,” Uncle Guillaume tells me. “He waits for you at the steps of the cathedral.”