Four Sisters, All Queens

by Jones, Sherry

  “By God’s head, let us have peace,” she says to Henry. Tears fill her eyes as she gazes at Simon, whose complexion has lost all color. “As your queen, it is my right to intervene. I beg clemency for our brother-in-law, my lord. On this, my special day, I pray you will honor my request.”

  Her voice pleads, but her eyes warn him. He has already gone too far. Now is the time to relent.

  Henry drops his head, suddenly sheepish. “As our queen wishes.”

  “Then we will leave you to celebrate in peace.” Eleanor Montfort smoothes her skirt. “First, however, I must make a correction.”

  “You need say nothing, sister. You are the innocent, the victim of this treasure-seeker’s lust and ambition.”

  “No, brother, you are wrong.” She lifts her chin and turns to face the room.

  “Simon did not seduce me,” she announces. “I was not an innocent young girl when we met, but an experienced widow. I fell in love with him the moment we met, and have loved him for years.” She turns to Henry, who is now the slack-jawed one. “I seduced Simon, and not the other way around.”

  She takes her husband’s arm. They stand for a moment like statues, looking straight ahead, avoiding the myriad eyes upon them. Then, together, they march out of the great hall, mount their horses and gallop away, leaving Westminster in a cloud of dust and exclamations.

  SCHEMERS—THERE ARE SO many—watch and whisper as she nibbles the meat from the bones of a lark. Coming to Simon’s defense did not endear her to the nobility. Nor did it help her to do so, for he is gone, and her dear sister-in-law, too, leaving Eléonore alone to face the English wolves and their fangs dripping with insinuation.

  “You must be furious,” Marguerite whispers. But she is wrong. The old Eléonore would be fuming—but she and Henry cannot both stomp their feet like little children, or they will accomplish nothing.

  She sets down her bird and wipes her fingers on the tablecloth. “He is passionate, my Henry.” She smiles, remembering last night, his hot mouth, his hard body. “I would despise a dull man.”

  “But you’re in love with Simon.”

  She arches her brows at her sister. “As you have seen, we have our share of scandal in this court. Let’s not add to it with fruitless speculation.” She lowers her voice. “It is Richard whom I wish to discuss.”

  “Your husband’s brother? Elli! You have managed to shock even me.”

  “Not for myself. Really, Margi! For Sanchia.”

  Richard has taken the cross, she tells her, and plans to leave for the Holy Land next spring with Thibaut. “We must tell Mama to invite him to Provence on his way. But—we mustn’t tell her why.” Richard is too recently a widower, and, faced with Mama’s ambition, would close himself like a tortoise against her.

  “Richard of Cornwall, campaigning in Outremer?” Marguerite smirks. “But he will ruin his silks and pointed shoes, and muss his careful hair.”

  “Not so careful these days. His wife’s death has left him in disarray, not to mention despondency. I’m sure he hopes to die in Jerusalem so he can join her in heaven.”

  “After a long purification in purgatory. You know what they say about rich men and the eyes of needles.”

  “He does love money. And beautiful women. Isabel Marshal was extraordinary. But she would have faded like an old bloom next to Sanchia.”

  “Like that old bloom, Sanchia would fall apart in Toulouse’s hands,” Marguerite says. “You and I must save her, Elli, I agree. I can’t imagine what Papa was thinking.”

  He was thinking of stopping Toulouse’s attacks, and nothing more. He told their maire that the marriage would never happen, that Toulouse would never get his annulment. But instead of rejecting his petition, the pope has called for a hearing. If he grants Toulouse his wish, Sanchia will be his, and Provence will be free of his tyranny at last. Sanchia, however, will suffer for the rest of her life—a sacrificial lamb, like her beloved Christ.

  Back in Eléonore’s chambers, the sisters plan. First, they send a letter to Pope Gregory, asking him to deny Toulouse’s annulment request. We protest his casting out a long-faithful wife simply because she has produced a daughter instead of a son, their letter reads. Let not the vows of marriage, sanctified by the Church, be forsaken lightly.

  Next, Eléonore arranges for Richard to sail to Outremer from her father’s port in Marseille, and asks him to deliver a package to Sanchia on the way. “Make certain you place it in her hands,” she tells him. “There are secrets in these letters, between sisters, that no other eyes should see.”

  It will be a perfect match. Sanchia, who would rather marry a toad than the Count of Toulouse, will swoon over the charming Richard. And, with the Earl of Cornwall’s wealth to protect her family, Toulouse will never attack Provence again. Everyone will be happy except Raimond of Toulouse—which makes the sisters’ plan even more delectable.

  Sanchia

  The Company of Young Girls

  Marseille, 1240

  Twelve years old

  SANCHIA PRESSES HER knees into the floor. If only it weren’t so smooth. She wants sharp stones to cut her flesh, so that God might take pity on her.

  I want only to serve you. Release me from these marriage bonds, O Lord. Send me to a convent, I pray, or take me to you now. The pope has heard Raimond of Toulouse’s plea for annulment. “A very effective speech,” Romeo said when he returned from Rome, making Sanchia’s heart skip not one beat, but two. Making her faint, almost. She thought she might be dying of fright. She hoped for it. But, no. The Lord wants her to live. He must have a purpose in mind for her. Is she selfish to wish for death instead of marriage to Toulouse? Forgive me, O Lord. I submit to your will.

  As she wipes her tears and struggles to her feet, Mama appears. An English visitor has come—with gifts from Eléonore to be given only to her. An hour later, freshly bathed and wearing a gown of yellow linen sewn with pearls, Sanchia stands in the great hall before the brother of the English king. His eyes move like dancers, now on her face, now on her hair, now on her bosom. When he hands her a package from Eléonore, he leans in as if she were a fragrant flower.

  “The queen has sent letters, and a fabric embroidered with roses. To match the roses in your cheeks, no doubt,” he says. He leans closer to hear her stammered thanks. Heat rises from his skin. His mouth looks soft and full, like a woman’s. He smells of oranges.

  He smiles at Mama, who blushes like a girl. “Will your lovely daughter dine with us tonight?” Sanchia’s stomach forms knots.

  Mama’s laugh breaks like a bubble. “She’s only a child, Lord Cornwall—too young for adult conversation.”

  “I see.” He crinkles his eyes at Sanchia. “Perhaps a dance later? After the meal.”

  “Mama, I am not a baby,” she says as her maire escorts her to the nursery. “Elli and Margi both married kings when they were twelve.”

  “Age means one thing to one girl, and something else to another,” Mama says. She lifts her eyebrows. “Did you desire to dine with the Earl of Cornwall? What would you talk about? He is a worldly man, while you fear your own shadow.”

  “We could talk about Outremer,” she says. How she would love to travel to Jerusalem, and walk in the Lord’s footsteps.

  “What do you know about Outremer?” Mama says, frowning. “If you had tended to your lessons, you might have something interesting to say. As it is, you would only bore him with your ignorance.”

  She leaves her in the nursery and hurries back to the great hall, to take for herself the seat that the Earl of Cornwall offered to Sanchia.

  Mama is so witty and charming, everyone says so. But soon a servant comes to the nursery to fetch Sanchia back to the great hall. She hopes she will not be asked to perform for their guest. Margi used to entertain on the vielle, making Mama proud—but, as Mama says, she is not Margi. She plays the harp only for herself, and for the Lord. When others listen, her fingers turn to sticks.

  In the hall, a minstrel performs the Kalenda M
aya—again. Sanchia can almost hear Mama telling the earl that “the great troubadour Raimbaut de Vaqueiras performed this song in this very hall.” She always says this as proudly as if Raimbaut had written the song for her, instead of for a different Beatrice. But Mama is almost as fanciful as Eléonore sometimes.

  She awaits Sanchia on the floor, wearing a smile that looks painted on. The Earl Richard has asked again to dance with Sanchia, she says. “Neither your Papa nor I can hold his attention for long. He wants only the company of young girls today.”

  “But—what will I say to him?” She tries to pull her hand from her mother’s grasp. Mama tightens her grip.

  “Do you think he requested you for conversation?” Mama says with a laugh.

  As they step up to the table, Papa is offering to escort the earl to the shrine of Saint Giles for blessings before he embarks on his journey. The earl sits up and fixes his eye on her, as if he were a bird and she were a wriggling worm. She steps back, behind her mother, but Mama nudges her forward.

  “Our daughter is exceedingly shy,” Mama says.

  “The Queen of England’s sister, shy?” He grins. Sanchia cringes. Why must everyone compare her to her sisters?

  “Her bashfulness confounds us all,” Mama says. Her voice slurs a little, as if she needed a nap. She holds out her goblet for more wine. “Her sisters excel at riposte and debate.”

  “And yet her beauty outshines theirs,” the earl says. He chases her eyes with his, as if they were playing cat-and-mouse.

  “Do not be afraid of me,” he says. His voice sounds warm, and her arms feel cold in this large hall. “Forgive my boldness, but you remind me, somehow, of Isabel, the beloved wife I so recently lost.” His voice cracks, as though he might cry. The Lord has sent him, she thinks, for her to console. “I would derive comfort from a dance, if you would do me the honor.”

  Moments later she twirls in the earl’s arms, blushing and tongue-tied and avoiding his stares until, at last, he starts to talk about the Promised Land. “I leave tomorrow, not knowing whether sickness, disease, imprisonment, or death awaits me,” he says. “Nor did I care, until today.”

  “May Our Lord guide and protect you,” she says. “I will remember you in my prayers.”

  She whirls away, looking up at her parents. Watching them watch her, and knowing what their smiles say. Romeo watches, too, and whispers to Papa. She can read his lips in part. “Not a king,” he is saying. “Very wealthy.”

  The dance finished, the earl lingers on the floor with her. “You must not marry the Count of Toulouse,” he says. “Wait for me. I will come back for you.”

  He tucks her hand into the crook of his arm and returns her to the table. His smile billows like a sail. “Your daughter has captured my heart,” he tells Papa. “I would take her away with me, if I could.”

  Mama, pinkening as though she were the object of Cornwall’s desire, murmurs that, as the earl surely knows, Sanchia is engaged to Raimond of Toulouse.

  Richard of Cornwall laughs. “That eunich, who hides his inability to sire sons beneath the skirts of his wife?” Papa frowns, having fathered only girls. The earl slaps his back. “Leave Toulouse to me, my lord. If it is a breeder he desires, Pope Gregory will find him another. I would make your daughter my most prized possession, the envy of every woman from Ireland to Outremer.”

  In the nursery, Sanchia walks in circles, wondering what has happened. She prayed to be released from marriage, yet now another suitor vies for her hand. “Is anyone listening?” she whispers. And then rushes to the chapel to fall on her knees and beg forgiveness for her moment of doubt until her voice becomes a rasp and no one can hear her at all.

  Marguerite

  The Jaws of Death

  Paris, 1240

  Nineteen years old

  TO BEAR A child, it is said, is to pass through the jaws of death—as if death were like Jonah’s whale, waiting to swallow a woman at the moment of her life-giving. But death is no passive creature. On the day that Marguerite bears her long-wished-for child, death is a monster ripping her with ruthless claws. Death seizes her like the teeth of a lion and shakes her, splintering her thoughts. Hands pull the infant from her body but later she will remember only her screams, said to send horses stampeding through the city. “Call the queen mother,” Gisele says, but Marguerite moans for Louis, her only friend in this cold place. His hand soothes her hot brow; his prayers gather her back to herself.

  Then she hears the monster speak, and its voice is a woman’s. “Louis! Are you here yet again? The Emperor of Constantinople has brought the fragment of Our Lord’s cross. You must come at once. Come now, Louis. He is waiting. You can do nothing here, anyway.”

  She feels his fingers slip away, as her life wants to do. “No!” she cries, and opens her eyes to see Blanche plucking Louis from her bed. Marguerite’s shout—really a feeble croak, although it seems to her that she snarls like a tigress—goes unheeded, although Louis turns to her, hesitant. Marguerite summons her strength.

  “Mother-in-law, why are you here?” she wails. Blanche’s eyes, red-rimmed against the white of her makeup, stare as if Marguerite were a ghost. “Haven’t you done enough harm?”

  “She is delirious,” Blanche says. “Her life is in God’s hands now. Come, darling. The business of your kingdom awaits.” Louis kisses Marguerite’s hand and lays it across her chest as though she had already left this world.

  “Hateful woman! Murderess! Deceiver!” Blanche, both hands grasping Louis’s arm, urges him out the door. “Where is your Christian love? You have kept my husband from me for four years, and now you take him again, in the hour of my trial. Why? Are you jealous? Do you want him for yourself?”

  The room buzzes with murmurs. My God, how many have come to watch her die? No—not that—they came for a birth. Her baby…

  “She is delirious,” Blanche says again.

  “And yet she speaks the truth,” Gisele murmurs. She slips her hand into Marguerite’s.

  “You accused me of barrenness, when you are the empty one,” Marguerite says to Blanche. “Louis! Please don’t go, or I will die.”

  Blanche never turns around, but Louis does. She imagines, for a moment, that he will rush back to her side and grasp both her hands in his own, forsaking his mother at last. Instead, he seems unable to choose between them, at least at first. His eyes look to Blanche, beseeching, apologetic. She turns on one heel and marches from the room. Only then does he slowly—hesitantly—return to her bed.

  “How is our child, my lord?” she asks when he has sat beside her again. “Is he well?”

  He heaves a great sigh. His mouth sags at the corners. “What, is something amiss?” Marguerite’s voice rises. “Oh, God, no!”

  “All is well, my lady.” Gisele’s soft voice soothes her even as Louis’s eyes well with tears. “Your baby suckles at the nurse’s teat, as healthy as can be.”

  “Praise be to God, then.” Marguerite squeezes Louis’s hand. “Have you seen him, my lord? Is he a wondrous prince?”

  “You have borne me a girl,” he says, his mouth tight with the effort of smiling.

  “A girl!” A sweet ache spreads through her bones. She lifts her gaze to Gisele. “I want to see her.”

  “I will go and fetch her now, my lady.”

  “You are disappointed,” she says to Louis. A tear slips down his cheek. Marguerite squeezes his hand again, thinking to console him, but no words will come. A boy would have been Louis’s, but a girl is all hers. At last, someone for her to love in this friendless court.

  A baby’s cry rings through the castle, the sweetest song ever to Marguerite’s ears. She feels a warm rush in her breasts and then sees, in Gisele’s arms, a perfect little babe with a head full of dark down. “Sweet darling,” she murmurs, drawing her baby close. The infant clutches at her mother’s breast with greedy hands and opens her mouth like a bird’s.

  “My lady, we have a wet nurse for that,” Gisele says as Marguerite tries to latch th
e baby onto her nipple.

  “Excellent! Have her come and show me how to do this.” Then, as her baby suckles, she gazes into her bright eyes, thanking God and the saints for her good fortune. Her love is a river of milk, rushing through her blood and into the body of this perfect little being. Even the brisk step of Blanche reentering the room cannot stop the flow.

  “Your country bumpkin upbringing is showing again,” she drawls. “How crude, to bare your breast before God and all!”

  “But see how beautiful she is, Queen Mother,” Marguerite says. Blanche’s appraising eye remains cold. Marguerite casts about for some way to appease her. The White Queen’s affection will be crucial to her daughter’s happiness.

  “Babies all look like rats at this age,” Blanche sniffs. “And France still lacks an heir to the throne.”

  “I see no resemblance to rats, but to me—for she has my dark hair, as you can see—and to you. See how blue her eyes are!”

  “All babies are born with blue eyes.” Yet she moves a little closer to the bed. Marguerite slips her finger into her baby’s mouth to detach her from her nipple, then holds her out for the queen mother’s inspection.

  “But hers are especially blue—the very shade of her grand-mère’s eyes. Would you like to see for yourself?” Blanche stiffens as if she might refuse, but how could she with her son looking on? Then, as she folds the baby into her arms, the child belches and spits a stream of watery white milk onto the queen mother’s gown.

  Gisele gasps. “Let me get a towel for you, my lady. Oh, my, what a bad girl to spit up on your grand-mère!”

  “Those are bad manners, indeed,” Blanche says. But she speaks in a cooing tone, and tickles her granddaughter under the chin. “We will have to teach you better, won’t we? Yes, we will! Yes, yes, yes, little—What have you named her?”

  “We would have named a son Louis,” Louis says. “But a girl? We had not even thought of it.”