Four Sisters, All Queens

by Jones, Sherry

  Mama has forgotten her, as usual. On her other side, Eléonore and Marguerite chat with their heads together, scheming another match, probably. They had better not try to arrange a marriage for Beatrice. Who wants a husband telling her what to do? You are the only man I want, Papa. He laughed when she said this, and told her his secret. When he dies, she won’t need anyone else.

  Her sisters will foam at the mouth, especially Marguerite. But why should Beatrice care? Marguerite treats her like a servant, not a sister. When Mama took her to Paris, Marguerite caught her sitting on the queen’s throne and made her move to a little stool, saying, “No one may sit on the same level with the queen.” Beatrice cried and threatened to tell Papa, but she only laughed. “Do you think he would take your part in a quarrel with me?” He would, in fact, as Beatrice knows. Marguerite will know it, too, someday.

  She had thought Eléonore would be kinder—Eléonore, who used to hold Beatrice on her knee and read the stories of Lancelot to her. But she never said a word on Beatrice’s behalf today, when Marguerite scolded her and sent her away. This is the sister called “Eléonore the Bold”? Beatrice could tell the “Eléonore” stories in her sleep, she has heard them so many times: Eléonore scaling a cliff on a dare from Marguerite, then being unable to climb down. Eléonore attacking the Count of Toulouse at the Marseille market with a tree branch, surprising him so much he fell over. Eléonore insisting, against Mama’s wishes, on marrying King Henry when she was only twelve years old. Mama wanted her to wait a year or two, but she refused. “The English king changes his mind with the seasons, I hear. I’m going to him now, before the winter turns to spring and he finds another queen.” She would not be outdone, she said, by Marguerite.

  Marguerite and Eléonore. Eléonore and Marguerite. So young was Beatrice when they left Provence, she doesn’t remember Marguerite at all, and Eléonore only vaguely. But she has heard about them her entire life, has imagined them in her play, has written them letters that she never sent because, who is she? What does she have to say to the most famous women in the world, even if they are her sisters?

  Now Sanchia has joined their ranks, or nearly. In their glittering company, Beatrice wonders again: Who is she? What is she, except the baby and her father’s favorite?

  Romeo once promised to make queens of all the daughters of the Count of Provence. So goes another of the legends that have sprung up around their family. But then Papa engaged Sanchia to Raimond of Toulouse, a nobody. Now Sanchia is married not to a king, but to the brother of a king, which is nearly as good, and the Count of Toulouse is said to have his eye on Beatrice. And Beatrice, judging from the way her sisters treated her today, is the nobody.

  The maid approaches, her face bright with relief. “At last, I have found you!” she cries—and Beatrice runs again, through the milling crowd, careful not to jostle the servants with their platters of food, for to cause a spill would alert her mother that she is still in the great hall instead of snoring over psalters and dolls in the nursery. She ducks into the garden and hides behind a tree, catching her breath, when she hears two young men talking and laughing in the strange, harsh French of the north.

  “She is the best looking sister, don’t you think?”

  “And as sweet as a summer breeze. Unlike that bitch Marguerite, whose blood is as cold as a dead man’s hands.”

  Beatrice resists the urge to leap out and defend her sister. She doesn’t want to be seen—and besides, how could she argue? Marguerite is a bitch.

  “Sweet Sanchia of Provence. What a dream! It is too bad that she had to marry that greedy English bastard.”

  “What is wrong with a bit of greed? Take whatever you can in life, I say.”

  “Ah. Spoken like a brother of the King of France.”

  She peers around the tree, beholds the king’s brother who hates her sister. He is not tall, but his body is muscular; not handsome, but interesting in appearance, with a prominent nose and snapping dark eyes. “Not just any brother,” he says. “I will be the richest and most powerful of the sons of Blanche de Castille—even more powerful than Louis.”

  His companion laughs. “Charles! Your modesty astounds me. Where will you begin your conquests? With a beautiful heiress? Why didn’t you seek the hand of Sanchia of Provence? Or—why not the youngest daughter? I hear she is nearly as lovely.”

  “Bah. Provence. That little backward county? It might have been worth the taking if Count Ramon Berenger hadn’t drained his treasury to entertain simpering minstrels and third-rate poets.”

  “Careful, man. I come from Toulouse, you know, where the air is fragrant with the troubadours’ song.”

  “Heretics!” Charles spat. “They’re all Cathars, you know. The Church would have wiped them out if your Cathar-loving count had not defended them.”

  “Even as he tried to conquer Provence, do not forget. That ‘backward county’ must be a more desirable possession than you realize. Their salt mines are more valuable than gold. And the youngest daughter is almost of age to marry, I hear.”

  “That would be a pretty alliance! Charles, brother of the king, and the daughter of a poor count? If I wanted Provence, I would have no trouble grabbing it by force. That old woman Ramon Berenger would be no match for me.”

  “Old woman, ha ha! I have met him, and he is as soft as a fawn. It is no wonder that he sired only girls.” The youths erupt into laughter—which stops when Beatrice jumps out from behind her tree.

  “The Count of Provence is a renowned warrior!” she shouts, waving her fists about. “Even at his age, he could kill you both at the same time.”

  Charles’s friend points his finger at her. “See who defends the mighty Provence? A little girl! Will you challenge me to a duel now, sweetheart, or a game of dolls?”

  And then Beatrice is on top of the boy without knowing how she got there, and he is on the ground beneath her, and blood is all over her hands. She hits him again, trying to stop the laughter, and indeed he is cringing and trying to cover his face, but the laughter—coming from behind her—only increases.

  “Hit her back, you baby!” Charles shouts. “What is the matter with you, man? Can’t you defend yourself against a little girl?”

  He raises his arms and Beatrice, thinking that he will strike back at her, slaps him in the face. “Ouch! Hey!” the youth cries, and then hands have grasped her under her arms and yanked her to her feet, and the young man is sitting up, wiping blood from his nose. She struggles to free herself from the prince Charles’s grasp but only jabs an elbow into his ribs before he squeezes her so tightly she can barely breathe.

  “Hold on, little lion. You can beat my friend here without repercussion, but I am not quite so chivalrous. Hit me again and you’ll feel my spank!”

  Beatrice kicks him in the shin as hard as she can. He yelps and lets go, and she whirls around to face them. Now the brother of the King of France bends over to massage his leg, and his friend stands beside him, pinching his nostrils shut and laughing.

  “Beatrice! Where are you?” Her mother’s voice sounds from within. Beatrice darts behind the tree, hoping the youths will not give her away.

  “And what is going on here? Charles of Anjou, fighting? Your reputation for trouble appears to be well deserved.”

  “Not I, madame.” He glances toward the tree; Beatrice shrinks back.

  “Beatrice!”

  She steps out into the open, glaring at Charles, holding her bloody hands behind her.

  “He insulted Papa,” she says.

  “Oh, Beatrice.” Her mother’s eyes fill with tears. “I have been looking everywhere for you. Your father has taken a turn for the worse, my dear. We must hurry home at once!”

  Marguerite

  My Provence

  Paris, 1244

  Twenty-three years old

  A DIN ARISES from outside: a great noise of crashing and screeching, as if a storm were sweeping through Paris. Inside Marguerite’s chambers, barons, wives, clergymen, ladies-in-waitin
g, servants, uncles, and the healer congratulate one another as if they had borne the king’s heir.

  “Good work, Margi,” Uncle Peter says. She would reply, but she cannot muster the strength for even a smile.

  A hand on her brow. Marguerite opens her eyes to see her husband, sporting the hideous woolen cap he has taken to wearing which, he says, demonstrates humility (a quality which Louis is proud to claim). “You have done it, my bride,” he says, and for a moment Marguerite’s pulse leaps with the promise of love, now that she has given him his prize. Hope, however, is elusive in these times, as is Louis’s gaze, and in the next moment both have gone from her as he turns to welcome his mother’s embrace.

  “You must try to sit up, my lady.” Gisele’s touch cools her in the overly warm room. Marguerite asks that a window be opened but the physician shakes his head; disease might enter from outside, where a mighty crowd has gathered. “Can you hear them cheering? You have made your subjects happy today.”

  Blanche, on the other hand, looks anything but pleased as she steps up to the bed.

  “He is quite large, while my babies were tiny at birth.” Blanche looks at her askance, as if this discrepancy from the Capetian mold were Marguerite’s fault. “Your Isabelle and Blanche were small babies, too, non?”

  All the white makeup in the world cannot hide the disappointment of a displaced dowager queen. Marguerite closes her eyes. Blanche must move out of the castle now, giving Marguerite a reason at last to be thankful. Now the world may recognize her as France’s queen. She has awaited this moment for ten years, but now that it is here she only sighs, and wishes she could sleep.

  “She looks very pale.” She opens her eyes at the sound of his voice. Jean de Joinville rakes a hand through his soft hair. “Are you in pain?”

  “Not anymore,” she says, smiling into his eyes. He glances around the room, but not even Blanche is watching. Marguerite, queen or not, is the least important person in these chambers. Louis joins in a song of praise to God and Blanche accepts kisses, while the prince gets handed around and admired as though disease struck only from outside the castle walls.

  If only everyone would depart these chambers—except Joinville. Were she alone with him, she would answer his question more fully, would tell him that she felt no pain at all during the birth of her son. Why did she ever think giving birth was difficult? Blanche’s birth nearly killed her, yes, and the second, Isabelle, took many hours to arrive, knowing, perhaps, that, being a girl, she would be greeted with frowns and sighs by all except her mother. But this third child—nay, second, now, the first is gone—fairly burst forth from her womb, making a boisterous entrance with cries more vociferous than any sound uttered by Marguerite. “My lady was brave,” the midwife tells Joinville now. But one must be fearful to be brave, and Marguerite felt no fear today, no anxiety, nothing; the same as she has felt in all the months since sickness took her little Blanchette from her day by day until, one morning, Marguerite awoke to a world without her.

  “You look sorrowful.” The queen mother assesses her with eyes as pale as a winter sky. “Very unhappy for a queen who has just borne the future King of France.”

  “I cannot stop thinking about the one who died.”

  “Tsk! Children die. Accustom yourself to it, or you’ll waste many hours shedding fruitless tears.” She takes the prince from the midwife. “Be thankful that it was only a girl.”

  Marguerite lifts her hands—she has to hold the child, she supposes—but Blanche turns away and takes it into the crowd. “Behold the future King of France’s marvelous size,” she crows. “Behold his magnificence.”

  There is a stirring at the doorway. A messenger has arrived, asking for the queen. “I am here,” Blanche calls out. As she passes the bed, Marguerite lifts her eyes to the babe and thinks she should probably hold it.

  The man bows and hands Blanche a piece of folded parchment. She examines the seal and lifts her plucked eyebrows nearly to the place where her hairline should be. Marguerite sits up a bit straighter, expecting the babe to come to her while Blanche opens her message. The queen mother hands it to Louis, instead.

  “What a splendid boy,” he says, smiling at Marguerite. “Note the alert quality of his gaze. One does not often detect such intelligence in a newborn.” Her interest suddenly piqued, Marguerite holds out her hands to Louis.

  As he strides toward her, however, the infant begins to cry. Marguerite feels the rush of milk to her breasts as the midwife scoops him out of Louis’s arms and, murmuring an apology, hurries from the chambers to find the wet nurse.

  “She will be back soon, my lady, and the babe in your arms.” Gisele plumps her pillows. Something falls on Marguerite’s lap: the parchment that Blanche was holding.

  “The fool delivered his message to the wrong queen,” she says. “This was meant for you. From Provence.”

  Marguerite turns the parchment over, her pulse thudding in her ears. This is no message of congratulation, come all the way from Provence so soon after her baby’s birth.

  We do not know how much time remains to your father, her mother has written. We have completed his final will and testament, which we hope you will agree is best for all. Hoping to make a good marriage for Beatrice, he has bequeathed Provence to her. She will be anointed as countess in his presence soon, with me as a witness, so that no one can dispute her right to the title.

  Marguerite stares at the parchment. Have her eyes deceived her? She reads the message again, then again, as if missing words might appear if she only stared hard enough. She has lost Provence—to the spoiled, selfish Beatrice? Is there nothing for her, nothing at all? What of the dowry pledged by Papa in her marriage contract? What of Tarascon?

  She hands the letter to Louis. “My condolences,” he says when he has read it. “I know you loved your father well.”

  Marguerite tries to speak, but each word turns to salt on her tongue. Her eyes burn. Louis sits beside her and pulls her close. She breathes him in: damp wool, chapel incense, blood.

  “My father leaving this world; my Provence, taken from me,” she says, sobbing at last. “My dowry, denied. God, how will I bear all this loss?”

  Blanche places a hand on her arm and leans over to speak low, so that no one else can hear. “Summon your courage. You are the Queen of France! Your enemies are everywhere, even in this room. Do not reveal your weaknesses to them.”

  Marguerite looks to her husband; can’t a queen mourn her child, or her father? But he is nodding. “One must demonstrate competence. Are you to be brought down by the loss of a castle and a few thousand marks?”

  “But I have lost Provence,” Marguerite says. “It is lost to France completely. My sister will be its countess, not I.” She imagines Beatrice rustling about the château in her new silks. She had threatened to go naked rather than wear Sanchia’s clothes. I am no frumpish nun; nor do I plan to dress like one. She imagines Beatrice scheming to squeeze money from her vassals, even as they kiss her ring in homage.

  Blanche stands and plants her hands on her hips. Her rings glitter, as do her eyes, which look over the crowd, then affix their gaze across the room—on Charles, sneering down his long nose at a servant who has splashed wine on his sleeve.

  The queen mother’s mouth begins to move, as though she were talking to herself. “Nothing is ever lost to France,” she says to Marguerite. “You would already realize this, were you as clever with your mind as you are with your tongue.”

  Beatrice

  A Woman May Rule

  Aix-en-Provence, 1245

  Fourteen years old

  IT IS A splendid sepulcher, beautifully wrought, of rose-colored marble engraved with the dragons Papa loved and a planh by Sordel, with a window for letting in the sun he craved and a bench on which Beatrice shivers and prays for deliverance. Marguerite commissioned this tomb and paid for it, her gift in honor of their father, but surely he cannot rest in it while she conspires with her sisters against Beatrice and threatens war agains
t Provence.

  We want only what is rightfully ours, her sister wrote in a letter Mama read aloud in a voice like a hammer, each word striking Beatrice in the heart. Provence owes ten thousand marks to France or the castle and lands at Tarascon, promised as dowry upon our marriage to the king. We demand full payment or we will take your county by force.

  Eléonore, too, has protested that Papa owes money to England, and Sanchia is making claims, as well. But—why? What is ten thousand marks to the rich and powerful France? Or four thousand to England? And all the money in Provence’s treasury would be as an anthill next to Richard of Cornwall’s mountain of gold. “Why, Papa?” she cries aloud, here in his tomb, where she can succumb to her grief away from the stern watch of her maire, who has not shed a single tear since her father died, and away from the always smiling Romeo, who hovers at her elbow in fear, it seems, that she might have a thought of her own.

  Papa could not have known that her sisters would respond with violence. “All my daughters, except you alone, are exalted by marriage in a high degree,” he said as he lay dying one month ago. (Has so little time passed since he left her world?)

  Romeo smiled even then, she recalls, like a dog with its teeth bared, always smiling, proud of himself, as usual, for arranging her sisters’ marriages. “With such a bequest, I should have no difficulty finding a king for her,” he told her father. Beatrice’s tears flowed in earnest then, for it was her Papa she wanted, the only man she could ever love.

  He loved her, too, more than anyone. “My dearest Bibi, more beloved by me than all your sisters,” he said that day.

  “They’re jealous,” she says aloud now, and her tears dry up—just in time for her maire to find her sitting in perfect composure, a small smile on her face as she contemplates her first official act as Countess of Provence, which will be to write an indignant letter to Blanche de Castille protesting Marguerite’s threat. Everyone knows that Blanche is the real Queen of France—and that she has the power to subdue Marguerite.