The Sister Queens

by Sophie Perinot

  Knights and noblemen bow in acknowledgment as we pass. I cannot help but think of one who is not among them. Jean de Joinville is in Champagne, no doubt ably administering those territories while Thibaut is at his court in the Navarre. Sometimes I find it strange that a man with whom I passed not more than a dozen hours, and those hours more than a year ago, should be so much in my mind. But perhaps it is not so strange. It is no more uncommon to take an instant liking to someone than it is to take an instant disliking. My sister Eleanor used to brag that she could make up her mind about anyone or anything before I could say my alphabet. But I own it is unusual for me. I am a deliberative person. Not, as Eleanor liked to tease me, indecisive, but someone who likes to give every person and every question a fair chance to show their character. So the immediate amity I felt with the Seneschal of Champagne intrigues me and will not be forgotten.

  When Jeanne and I arrive at Louis’s tent, he and Alphonse are already present. They are glowing, not only with the sweat of the day but with the recent victory at Taillebourg. Louis is talking to his constable, Humbert de Beaujeu, doubtless about the next engagement. I see the marshal hovering nearby. The entrance of the ladies, or rather ladies other than Blanche who is already present and clearly part of the discussions, brings military matters quickly to a close. Louis approaches to lead me to the table.

  “You prepare to lay siege to Saintes?” I ask, taking Louis’s arm.

  “In a day or perhaps two. You will be quite safe here.”

  “From all but the heat,” Jeanne remarks, taking up Alphonse’s arm.

  Louis gives the Countess of Poitiers a withering look. He dislikes complainers.

  “I am not the least concerned,” I say lightly. “The English king, the Count of La Marche, and their allies stand no chance against Your Majesty.”

  “We do not know if Henry of England is still with the rebels. Rumors have reached us that he has broken with the Count of La Marche and already flees toward Bordeaux.”

  I say nothing, merely sinking into my seat between Alphonse and Louis, but I feel a great surge of relief. Eleanor is at Bordeaux. With luck, albeit a commodity of which Henry of England seems to have precious little, her husband will reach her safely.

  The basins are brought round. Hands are washed and wine is poured. I expect any moment to see food carried in. Instead, there is a great commotion just outside—feet scuffling, loud voices, the distinctive sound of blows. It is as if a battle has suddenly erupted. Louis and the other gentlemen are on their feet instantly, hands on sword hilts. Before they can charge out into the gathering darkness, however, the tent flap opens and a tightly drawn group of knights lurches and shoves its way through. At the group’s center I can see two figures being dragged violently along as blows rain down upon them. They do not appear to be knights or even common foot soldiers, but are dressed in the manner of cooks.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Louis barks.

  The Count of Taillebourg breaks from the knot of men. “Your Majesty, we have uncovered great treachery.” Turning back, he grabs one of the two servants by his hair, half lifting and half dragging him out where the king can see him better. The man’s visage has aspects of a cornered beast. His glance darts about desperately as if searching for escape. His clothing is torn, and one of his eyes already begins to blacken. “This man and his accomplice were caught poisoning the food intended for Your Majesty’s table.”

  There is a great and collective gasp from those seated. Blanche knocks over her cup, and the contents, red as blood, run before Louis where he stands, spilling down onto the ground. The count raises his arm and then lowers it with force, striking the miscreant on the head with the hilt of his sword.

  “Stop.” Louis’s voice is calm. He walks the length of the table and then around it, halting in front of the count and his captive. “Who sent you?”

  The man opens his mouth, but instead of speaking, spits full in Louis’s face.

  The count raises his sword, but Louis stills him with a gesture.

  Lifting a hand to wipe his face, Louis remains composed. “Be warned, this is a serious business, and you will pay for it with your life. But if you are merely the instrument in another’s plot, your passing shall be made easy and those responsible for your wickedness shall also be punished.”

  “Go to the devil!” the man replies with a twisted, defiant sneer. “I will tell you nothing, by Christ’s cross and nails, nothing!”

  Louis’s face flushes scarlet, and I see the muscles in his jaw work and those in his arm tense as his hand clenches on the handle of his still-sheathed sword. “Get this man from my sight! He dares to blaspheme in my presence!”

  I feel a need to laugh hysterically. “Dares to blaspheme”? And this is serious? The man dared much more! He dared to kill a king, to kill us all. Realization of the threat faced and narrowly escaped suddenly falls upon me forcefully. My body shakes uncontrollably, and the laugh that hung in my throat turns to a sob, which I muffle with my hand.

  The count and a nearby knight drag the bold villain out. He continues to shout oaths as he is hauled away. Louis stands breathing heavily for a few moments and then, his face once more composed, turns to the second man still surrounded by French knights. In response to the king’s beckoning gesture, he is pushed forward. This one is younger and slighter of build. He shakes as much as I do.

  “And you, will you tell us at whose behest you came? We do not know your face, and we do not believe we have ever wronged you.”

  The man tries to speak and fails, then tries again. This time his voice emerges cracked with strain. “My mistress bid me hence.”

  “And who is your mistress?”

  I take my eyes off Louis and turn them in morbid fascination upon Blanche. She is paler than bread when it lies resting before taking its turn in the oven. I know the answer to Louis’s question before it comes. So does she.

  “The Countess of La Marche.”

  I do not go to see the men executed. When Marie returns, she tells me that the small man, the one who trembled so terribly and told all, died swiftly by the sword. But, at Blanche’s insistence, the spitter was fed a portion of the food he thought to serve us. He died in agony.

  THE KNEELING WOMAN SEEMS SO much older than when I saw her last. Gazing down at her bowed head, I think that it is neither her more than fifty years of life nor the birth of fourteen children, including the English king, that have taken their toll on her. What ages her are defeat and capitulation. She does not cry. Nor does she look up while her husband, weeping openly himself, makes a groveling apology to Louis. She merely resolutely stares at the floor beneath her knees. I let my eyes leave the bowed head of Isabella of Angoulême, Countess of La Marche, and the two tiny daughters who kneel beside her and glance at Blanche. The dragon is beaming. No doubt she is thinking of all the castles and territories that the count lost in surrendering—lands and castles now ours.

  My mind is on other subjects. This war is nearly over. Without Hugh de Lusignan, Henry of England cannot hold out against my husband. Even with the Count of La Marche, the English had little chance.

  Louis allows the humbled family to rise. They move down the dais and stop before Alphonse and Jeanne, Count and Countess of Poitiers. Slowly and elaborately the Lusignans pay homage for the lands they have been allowed to keep. Again my eyes find Isabella. This morning as she dressed me, Marie told me that two days ago the Countess of La Marche tried to take her own life. Can this moment of humiliation really be worse than an eternity in the fires of hell? Worse than the agonizing death that would have preceded damnation? For Marie also told me that Isabella planned to take poison—the same type she provided to her chefs before sending them into our camp to attempt our lives. I thank God silently that my sister Eleanor shall never know a moment such as this! Not at French hands. If I have to crawl before Louis in sackcloth and ashes, I will prevent it.

  CHAPTER 11

  Sister,

  Truly I do not remember
when I was last so angry with you. How dare you employ such a tone in addressing me. It is not you but rather I who has the right to feel aggrieved and to express my displeasure. Have you forgotten that it was your husband, the King of England, who attacked my own honorable lord, joining with the insurrectionist barons from Poitou? When assaulted, Louis must defend the integrity of his territories, and I expected you to understand as much, rather than to accuse him of conduct unbecoming a preudomme.

  But though mine is the side of right, still I beg you let us have no more of this. Let us not make personal what is essentially a political battle. To be at war with you, even through our kings and our countries, sits uneasily upon me. You are still my sister. I pray you will remember that no matter which of our husbands proves victorious on the field of battle.

  I pray that when this letter reaches you in Bordeaux you are already safely delivered of your child.

  M

  ELEANOR

  JULY 1242

  BORDEAUX, GASCONY

  How can a duchy that makes such pleasant wine be full of such unpleasant people?

  I have been in Gascony for two months, and my husband’s subjects do not impress me. I first settled at La Réole. But the people of that city, far from being honored by my presence, seemed to think my residence there might incense the French king to their detriment. Better they should have worried about incurring the anger of their own lord. Well, they will be sorry when Henry rides back from Poitou victorious and calls them to account! In any case, their ill manners drove me to Bordeaux where I now sit.

  Yes, I am in Bordeaux and, I must admit, I am bored and sulky—a far cry from my mood when we sailed from Portsmouth on the ninth of May. Oh, my spirits were high as I went aboard the royal ship to begin this war—high despite my certain knowledge that there would be physical discomfort in traveling, as I was perilously near to delivering my third child. Neither Willelma nor Sybil wanted me to make the journey on that account. They begged me to give birth in London. When that failed, they tempted me to pass my time at Windsor with Edward and my little Marguerite, or Margaret as the English call her, who prattles away now more like her mother than the aunt for whom she is named. But I refused, vowing that I would not miss the war in Poitou even for the company of my children. And Henry indulged me—to a point.

  When we landed, I wanted, of course, to go right along with him to meet the troops from Poitou, Gascony, and Toulouse. After all, if my husband was going to teach Louis of France not to flout English territorial claims, I did not wish to miss the lesson. But Henry forbade that. “A military camp is no place to give birth, Eleanor,” he said. So ended the matter. Not even my wistful mentions of how much I longed to meet his mother, Isabella of Angoulême, or my praise of the lady as a great virago moved him.

  He was probably right, though I have no plans of admitting as much when I see him. This lying-in was my worst. As if aware I am thinking of her birth, my new daughter, nearly a month old and named after my fair mother, grunts and snuffles in her cradle beside me. I rock her slightly to keep her from waking. Then I turn my gaze once more out of the window by which I sit to the flat, blue July sky. Now that I am not swollen in every limb, I long to fly like a bird to the battlefield and see what goes on there. I sigh.

  Willelma, who sits nearby, perhaps hoping to cheer me, says, “Will Your Majesty not write to the Queen of France?”

  I glance to the table where Marguerite’s last missive lies. Willelma cannot know this, but it is an unpleasant letter. Perhaps I did complain when I wrote to her last, upbraiding her once again for Louis’s audacity in provoking the English. But surely there was no need for her to get so angry. I have no desire to respond—at least not until I have some news from Henry. In his last letter he reported advancing to Tonnay-Charente. The French army was nearby and, as an exchange of letters between Henry and the French king had resolved nothing, battle was expected.

  “Do you suppose they are fighting even now?” I ask Willelma.

  “Who can say, Your Majesty.”

  Willelma’s unruffled calm irritates me. I know precisely who can say—Marguerite. Her tent is pitched alongside those of her husband and his men. She will miss nothing.

  Rising, I pace away from the window. Surely with the support of the powerful Count of La Marche Henry will be victorious. I suspect that Henry’s mother, Isabella, has the strength of will to drive her husband the count to victory whatever the odds. I’ve heard that she barred the door of Hugh’s castle against him until he vowed to punish the French for the insult paid her last summer! And if Hugh and his sons are not enough, the Earl of Cornwall is with Henry too. God’s blood, Richard was angry when he returned to English shores to find that, even as he was rescuing French captives in the Holy Land, Louis had the gall to invest another man with his lands. His fury should make him fight like ten men.

  Yes, Henry will defeat Louis, and then I will write to Marguerite. The high-minded tone of my response will nettle her, and that will serve her right, given her own recent, sanctimonious tone. This pleasant thought soothes me a bit, and I return to my vantage point at the window.

  What if Henry does not win? I do not know where the thought comes from. Actually, I do. My ladies and I every day hear murmurings from the streets beyond these walls, talk of the prowess of the French king; reminders that the Lusignans have a history of fighting for the French and not just fighting against them. In fact, the Lusignan men who are now my husband’s kin by marriage fought with Louis’s father when he overran Poitou. My breathing begins to trouble me. I feel as if I am being smothered by my sudden doubts. I press my hands to my chest where it grows tight and try not to panic.

  “Your Majesty?” Sybil speaks from the threshold. She moves quickly to set a tray she is carrying on my table, then rushes toward me. Willelma likewise stands and moves in my direction. I wave them off. What good can they hope to do by crowding me?

  Closing my eyes, I struggle to draw in as much air as I can. Then, closing my lips as tightly as possible, I push the air out again against their resistance. The process makes a dreadful and embarrassing noise, and I am well aware that I must look like a great bloated bullfrog, but it has the desired effect. A moment ago I felt strapped round as with unbendable bands of iron like some barrel. But now the bands are loosed. I open my eyes, breathing cautiously and with measured slowness. Willelma and Sybil both appear stricken.

  “The episode has passed,” I assure them.

  “Come away from the window, Your Majesty,” Sybil urges. She always sees the air as author of my difficulties. “Take some nourishment.” Walking to the table, she begins to uncover the dishes she carried when she entered. Their aromas are enticing; yet I rise reluctantly, fearing I will miss something. Sure enough, I am only just seated when the sound of horses at great speed can be heard. Rising, I knock over my chair and run to the window. I am just in time to see a last dust-covered rider pass through the wicket below.

  “They wear the king’s colors!”

  “I will go and bring their leader here directly,” Sybil says.

  “You will do no such thing.” The thought of waiting, even for Sybil to go and return, is unbearable. I move to my mirror, pinch both my cheeks, then, turning, say, “I will go myself.”

  My pace ever quickening, I move through a series of chambers, Sybil in my wake. By the time I reach the stairs, I am nearly at a run. I hurry down them in a manner hardly befitting a queen, and, opening the next door, reveal a much-bespattered John Mansel. His mouth is fixed into a grim and rigid line, and his eyes, while not seeking to avoid mine, have a deadness about them I do not like.

  “Your Majesty.” His perfunctory bow gives me a moment to steel myself. The news cannot be good.

  I DO NOT KNOW WHICH is harder to bear—the dreadful troubadour songs about Henry’s cowardice in battle or the weight of my sister’s mercy. The year of Our Lord 1243 has begun very badly indeed.

  “The treaty is just,” Uncle Peter says. We are closeted
together in my rooms in Bordeaux. “Urge Henry not to defer a moment longer. He must go to pay homage to Louis and sign.”

  “I know,” I snap, “but can you blame him for delaying? To kneel before the French king as his man! It is an unpalatable thought.”

  “Louis has no desire to embarrass Henry. You know what Marguerite writes—Louis pushes aside the criticism of his own advisers over the lenient terms of the treaty on the grounds that Henry is his brother by marriage.”

  “Lenient? You call the sums we will be required to pay per annum lenient?”

  “I do.” Uncle Peter strides to the window and pretends to give the view some consideration, though I know for certain there is nothing to be seen, just an early-spring garden not yet beginning to bud. Turning, my uncle regards me narrowly with intense eyes. “Eleanor, you have to stop behaving like an angry child who has lost a game.”

  “I am not!”

  “You are. It rankles you to lose to Marguerite, but put your feelings aside.” Peter approaches me where I sit, and, leaning close, continues in a low tone. “Henry has a short memory; he was deserted by the Count of La Marche and already forgives him. Take a lesson—forgive the French king for being the better military commander.”

  “How can you say ‘better’? You know that we were outnumbered and defeated by the count’s mismanagement before Henry even set foot off our ship!”

  “Mayhap. But Henry was also outmaneuvered. Louis of France gained nothing that he did not win fairly.” My cheeks grow warm with a combination of anger and shame. I know my uncle speaks the truth. Henry fought badly at Taillebourg, then turned and fled. But I bristle at any reminder of my husband’s shortcomings. “The bigger loss in this campaign was Gascony,” Peter continues, “which Henry gave away on a whim. We must concentrate on getting it back for Edward.”