The Sister Queens

by Sophie Perinot

  Yours,

  Eleanor

  ELEANOR

  DECEMBER 1240

  PALACE OF WESTMINSTER, ENGLAND

  Uncle Peter arrives at court on a cold, gray afternoon. Henry makes much of him from the instant of their meeting, slapping him on the back, making sure he is offered everything first at the banquet held in his honor. My uncle smiles unceasingly and praises everything he sees or tastes. Yet I can tell by the way his glance is in constant motion that he has critical eyes that see much they do not speak of.

  My uncle is not alone. He brought with him a large party of gentlemen—men of Savoy to be sure, but also men of Geneva, the lands of his wife and her father. I notice how the Englishmen on my husband’s council and those already swelling the ranks of our court in preparation for Christmastide regard these men with open suspicion. Perhaps they thought when word arrived that Uncle Guillaume had died suddenly on the slopes of Mount Cimini that the era of Savoyard influence in His Majesty’s kingdom was at an end. They understand as little of the Savoyard nature as I often understand of their odd ways.

  As dinner draws to a close Henry says, “Lord Peter, I grieved deeply over the death of your brother. You have come to lift the pall left upon my court and my heart by his passing, and you shall find me grateful for this. I think you must have a knighthood.”

  The Earl of Gloucester, sitting within hearing distance, nearly drops his goblet and only just manages to recover himself. But Henry ignores him.

  “Yes!” Henry smacks the flat of his palm on the table before him, delighted with his own idea. “I will knight you on the Confessor’s Day. And you must surely have land so that you may feel always at home here. Perhaps the Earldom of Lincoln.”

  Even I am astounded by this. Lincoln is rich land indeed.

  “Your Majesty is too generous.” My uncle’s reply is gracious but also serious. He can hear the rumblings around him.

  And though I love Henry and prefer his outbursts of extravagant goodwill to his outbursts of temper, I wonder why he can never see ahead to the consequences of his impulsive actions. He means to be good to my uncle, but, by the black looks of the men around us, may well do him harm—making him dozens of enemies before he is even a day among us. Praise God that the Earl Richard is on crusade, for I can well imagine his violent reaction to such an expensive show of royal favor.

  “With Your Majesty’s leave and indulgence, I and all my party are weary from the road and would retire early.” Peter casts Ebulo of Geneva, who arrived with him, a meaningful glance as he speaks.

  “Of course! We will have many evenings to enjoy your company. Pray take your rest.”

  As I have not had a single moment alone with my uncle since his arrival, when he begins to rise, I turn to my husband. “Henry, I would escort Lord Peter to his room and see that he is comfortable.”

  “By all means, madam.” Henry smiles indulgently, placing his hand atop mine for a moment. “Doubtless he has letters for you from your excellent parents.” Then leaning in and putting his mouth close to my ear he whispers, “Pray read quickly though, for I would be saddened to find you busy when I come to you this evening.” Henry returned to my bed so immediately and so enthusiastically after my churching following the birth of our second babe, the Princess Margaret, that I half expect to be swollen with child again come summer.

  Rising, I lead the way to the room given over to Peter’s use while he is with us. Peter follows in careful silence. The things we have to say to each other are private. When we arrive, I am pleased to see that my uncle’s things have already been unpacked and his linens placed upon the bed. Only a single servant is present, sitting at the fireside cleaning the boots Peter wore on the road. This man rises at the sight of me and, after an appropriate bow, departs without the need of an order on Peter’s part. Such a well-trained man is a treasure.

  “Is it true,” I ask Uncle Peter the moment we are alone, “that Guillaume was poisoned?”

  “The rumors appear to have reason.” My uncle nods his head sadly, but his eyes, even in grief, are fierce. “Whoever poisoned him may have felled a mighty tree but cannot succeed in the end. We will put forward Philippe for the bishopric in Liege, and it shall come into steady Savoy hands as a tribute to Guillaume.”

  And in his stubborn unwillingness to be defeated, I see myself.

  “But let us not dwell on unpleasant things.” He takes my hand and kisses it. “I am honored, Niece, to be at your court. I bring greetings from your parents, of course, but also words of approbation from the entire family. You have done well. Two healthy children! His Majesty issuing eager invitations to your kin, offering a hand of friendship and his worthy patronage; and by all accounts you hold the respect and the ear of your husband. What will you do with it next?”

  “I am not entirely certain.” I look around my uncle’s chamber as if the answer might be found there.

  “If you will be guided by me, I can help you to see your interests clearly, and to assist His Majesty in achieving his own. Already I have news I think you will find interesting and profitable.”

  “Yes?”

  “His Majesty’s brother is a source of persistent unrest in this kingdom, is he not?”

  “To be sure,” I say, “though sometimes I think he makes trouble merely because his purse is light.”

  “He attacks Savoyard interests.”

  “He paints us as estrangièra when it is convenient. Never mind that England is more ably ruled as a result not only of the bishop-elect of Valence’s former good service but by the efforts of dozens of other ‘foreigners,’ from stewards to clerks, who help to keep things in good order.” Richard’s attacks on my Savoyard kin and friends always sting as if they were attacks upon me personally.

  “Well then, when he returns to England from crusade, let us give the Earl Richard better eyes,” Thomas says. “It is to this that my news tends. The earl was a guest of your gracious parents on his way to the Holy Land.”

  “So I have heard by my mother’s letters.”

  “But what your lady mother did not tell you, because such hopes are better spoken low into an ear than put on the cold, brittle page, is that he made much of your sister Sanchia.”

  “Sanchia?”

  “Indeed. It seems that half a year as a widower left your husband’s brother pining for womanly companionship. He was struck by your sister from the first, and her modest blushes, quiet speech, and shyly lowered eyes drew him in completely. By the time he left your parents’ court in September, he was sorry to be parted from her. I think with a little encouragement he would have her for a bride.”

  To have a sister at court! Even if it cannot be Marguerite, such a thing tempts me greatly. “But is she not promised to the Count of Toulouse?” My eyes moisten slightly at this thought. When I first heard that Sanchia had been offered as a sacrificial lamb to stop the years of war between my father and that count, I cried in earnest. How bitterly I regretted teasing her and Beatrice as children about the infamously fierce count. How terrified I imagined she must be, facing marriage to a man who was both the bugbear of her childhood and thirty years her senior. I still cannot believe my mother would allow it.

  “Marriage to Raymond of Toulouse would doubtless solve a problem that dogs your father and his county, but it does not follow that he could not be made to see Richard as a better groom.”

  “Do you not mean paid to see?”

  Peter throws back his head and laughs. “The tutelage of my brother shows well in you, Eleanor. We shall be good partners, you and I, for we are both of a practical bent. Further, we shall be good friends, for I will hold nothing back from you but tell you the absolute truth, and you will behave likewise.”

  I smile. After all the times Mother and Marguerite have chided me for my outspokenness and all the times it has surprised, nay even shocked, my ladies, my sister-in-law, and even my husband, I have at last found someone to praise and appreciate it. “Richard for Sanchia. The earl could not be
more tightly bound to our family.”

  “He would also be beholden to his brother the king for forwarding the match.”

  “Uncle, you are here only a few hours and already you lift the bitter cold and damp of the place.”

  “What this? Cold? Eleanor, I have lands in the Alps. What teeth can the English weather show that will compare to that? Now that the Earl of Cornwall is disposed of, if Your Majesty is not eager to be gone, I would raise another subject.”

  “By all means.”

  “Who is the most important figure in Your Majesty’s life?”

  “His Majesty, of course. No, wait.” I lower my eyes for a moment and feel the blood rise to my cheeks. “If we are being entirely honest, I must say my children.”

  “You need not be embarrassed of such sentiments; they are natural. And more than this, they are politically wise, particularly with respect to the Lord Edward. He is the future of this realm, and who, I would suggest, is a better guard of that future than you, his most natural and loving mother?”

  “I would kill for him and also die for him.”

  “Let us hope that neither will be necessary,” my uncle replies, but he does not laugh or make light of my claim. “Who is charged with the care of the prince and his possessions until his majority should an untimely death take His Majesty?”

  I cross myself, for I do not like to entertain the subject of Henry’s death even for the sake of argument. “The Earl of Cornwall.”

  “Again Richard. Well, even if he marries Sanchia, we will not be secure enough in him to leave something of such importance in his keeping. Your Majesty is the obvious choice for the protection of all things appertaining to your son. You have the king’s love, and his ear, and this then is how you will first bend it.”

  “All things?”

  “Yes, starting with your son’s household. Those who surround your son must be loyal to you and trustworthy beyond doubt. They must personify your willingness to live and die for the boy when you cannot be at Windsor. May I suggest Bernard of Savoy for appointment as keeper of Windsor Castle?”

  “Because his ties are of blood, not only of county?”

  “Precisely. Kinship is the best guarantee of good service.”

  And looking at my uncle, so serious and so obviously entirely ready to devote himself to me, I know he speaks true.

  CHAPTER 9

  Eleanor,

  Summer has come. Knowing your love of gardens, I wish you could see these at Saumur. The views alone make them superior. This afternoon the air was so full of the buzzing of bees that I nearly fell asleep in the sun. Instead, I watched the creatures push their way into the blossoms of the eager, graceful flowers. Like the pear trees that will in proper time produce their sweet bounty, I long to find myself fruitful and swollen when autumn comes. I play the flower, dressing with great care, bathing myself in rose water. My mirror tells me that though I am twenty, my looks are as good as they ever were. But if Louis will have a son by me, he will need to be more of a bee and less of a monk than he has been since our daughter was born.

  Yours,

  M

  MARGUERITE

  JUNE 1241

  SAUMUR, ANJOU

  “Who is that boy with the king?” My choice of words is deliberate. By labeling the man a mere lad, I hope to convey all the appropriate disinterest that is at odds with the keen curiosity I feel.

  “Jean de Joinville, Seneschal of Champagne.” Elisabeth’s tone betrays the admiration mine seeks to mask.

  “He is attached to the court of fat Thibaut? How extraordinary.” I mean this in more than one sense. It is extraordinary not only because of the obvious contrast between the tall, muscular young man with the dark curls and the ponderously sized Count of Champagne who has little hair of any sort left, but also because the men from Champagne appear to be in a fair way toward captivating the heart of the second French queen in a row. For, when Thibaut was young and an outspoken critic of my husband’s father, rumors abounded of his amorous obsession with my despised mother-in-law. Did her heart leap like a stag as mine does now the first time she beheld her cavalier from Champagne? And if so, ought not such similarity soften my feelings toward her? Of course it has no such effect. I cannot, by my own experience of her, imagine Blanche young or soft or impressionable. And she is forever outside my sympathies, as I appear to be outside hers.

  “He is writing the story of the Count of Champagne’s crusade,” Elisabeth continues.

  “That does not sound very exciting. I understand the count fought only two battles, one of which was lost.”

  “I am sure the account of his exploits will improve mightily under de Joinville’s pen.”

  “Ah, then he is a man of sense and knows how to flatter a patron.”

  “Yes, but also, from what I hear, a man truly gifted with words.”

  “Hm. Do tell.”

  “They say he has talent enough to make even Thibaut seem dashing.” Elisabeth laughs as she speaks, and Yolande and my sister-in-law Matilda join her.

  My eye casts about for the count and finds him standing with the man for whom all this grandeur has been orchestrated—my brother-in-law Alphonse, who will be invested with Auvergne and Poitou in the next days, though he has been styled “Count of Poitiers” for years. Thibaut’s many chins waggle unbecomingly as he speaks, and I wonder that his wife is great with child by him again, her fifth by my count. She is a petite woman who looks totally incapable of bearing Thibaut’s weight under any circumstances.

  I am brought back to the present with force by the approach of my husband and the young Seneschal of Champagne. My ladies and I rise as if in a single motion and then drop low before Louis.

  “Your Majesty.” I know I am a picture of elegance and health in my tunic of white cendal, fitted ever so slightly in the bust to emphasize my breasts, grown larger since the birth of little Blanche. It is patterned with hundreds of my husband’s fleur-de-lis devices and belted at my still-slender waist with a girdle of scarlet to match my ermine-trimmed mantle. All my garments are new and were designed to tempt Louis. His self-denial with respect to the pleasures of my bed has been strengthened rather than weakened by the additional absence he imposed upon himself after the birth of the princess. But today is neither a Sunday nor a feast or holy day, and so I am waging a campaign to draw him to me this evening. I put out my hand to my husband and he takes it. As he does so, I see the dragon take note.

  “Wife, you and your ladies are a credit to this occasion, delighting the eyes of all.”

  “I hope Your Majesty knows well that it is only his eyes I care for, only his approbation that can please me.” I flush slightly as I speak, conscious that at the very moment I make my claim, a portion of the sparkle in my eye and the toss of my head are directed to Jean de Joinville.

  Louis is clearly delighted, as along with modesty he prizes loyalty greatly. He turns to his companion saying, “You see, sir, not only newly married men such as yourself hear pretty speeches from their wives.” Louis turns his head back in my direction, and Jean de Joinville’s gaze follows it. “Madam, this is the Sieur de Joinville, Seneschal of Champagne, and a gentleman of great piety.” I wonder if the seneschal knows that, by referring to him thusly, Louis hints that he is already finding royal favor. When a man impresses the king, he is always quick to praise his piety—even if he knows so little of the gentleman that he must take that piety on faith.

  “Sieur,” I say, trying to smile with my eyes, “we hear from every direction that you are a fine writer and much sought to set forth tales for those who wish to be educated or amused.” Do I imagine it or is de Joinville hanging on my every word? I wonder if he is breathing. His lips, slightly parted, seem better suited for other things, and I try to keep my eyes from lingering on them as I raise an eyebrow and continue. “Do your talents run to poesy, or only prose?”

  “Only prose, Your Majesty.” De Joinville’s voice is strong, clear, and pleasingly without affectation.

>   “What a pity. In Provence we had so many poets. They were as common as red valerian along a roadside and so much taken for granted that I did not think to bring one with me when I came to France.” The image of the minstrel who accompanied me from my father’s court years ago passes before my mind’s eye, causing me to question the motivation for my half-truth. “It seems I must continue looking.”

  “I am very sorry to disappoint Your Majesty.” De Joinville clearly means it. The list of those wishing to see me pleased at the court of my husband is not very long, but perhaps this young man may make up for the absence of many.

  THIS EVENING, TAKING A PAGE from Louis’s book, I am on my knees upon reaching my bedchamber. I dismiss my women without letting them undress me and pray to the Virgin that Louis will come to me, for I am ripe. I can smell it.

  When I was younger, I never noticed. But, after the birth of our daughter, in those first days of despair when I cursed God and my body, my dear Yolande, suspecting the cause of my great distress, offered to school me in the ways of my own flesh. She taught me how to detect the pungent change in my own urine. And now the scent pleases my nose, hinting at a secret source of power and pleasure.

  I hear the door open, but I do not move. I know that if it is Louis, seeing me thus, dressed in the color of purity, hands clasped and eyes closed, will excite his feelings for me as little else can.

  I am right, and, strangely, in the dark for a moment I forget the face of my husband, even his flashing blue eyes. Instead, I imagine a head full of dark curls, and I am startled when, reaching out to wind my fingers into them, I find Louis’s lank, fair hair in their place. What will my confessor, William de St. Pathus, make of that?