Four Sisters, All Queens

by Jones, Sherry

  Beatrice’s throat tightens. How would it be to lose Charles? Life would lose its luster. Even to lose her babies would strike her senseless. Yet the sultaness Shajar al-Durr sits on her throne and conducts business even while her heart breaks, even while the men who killed her son may be conspiring against her.

  “My people are watching me closely,” she says. “To have a woman as their ruler has not been permitted before. We hope the caliph will allow it now. But even if he does, the Turks may not. So I must proceed with care.”

  “And if something happens to you before I can collect the ransom? What will become of my husband and his men?”

  Shajar al-Durr’s thick eyelashes fall over her cheeks like fans. When she lifts her Nile-green gaze, Beatrice thinks she might burst into tears. “Whether we live or die is for Allah to decide.”

  “Then, by God, lower your ransom!” Beatrice cries. Marguerite reaches over and grips her hand.

  “I have nearly half of what you require at Damietta,” she says to the Egyptian queen.

  “That is not enough.”

  How can Marguerite sit so calmly and bargain for their husbands’ lives as though she were negotiating the price of corn? Maybe she doesn’t care about Louis—and Beatrice wouldn’t blame her—but Charles is somewhere in this city, living in filth and disease, enduring terrible tortures, starving to death.

  “Did you hear my sister? It’s all we have!” Beatrice cries. “You’ve got to let them go. My husband—I’ve had a baby, and she is very sick. Charles has never seen her.”

  Shajar al-Durr is silent.

  “If you do indeed fear for your life, then I beg for your leniency, O Queen.” Marguerite’s voice rings out. Dear God, what has happened to her? It is as if she became a man when she donned a man’s attire. “If you die, who will stop the Mamluks from brutally punishing our men?”

  “Your men came to kill us. Why should I concern myself with them?”

  “And our women? How will the Turks deal with us, sultaness?”

  Shajar al-Durr frowns. She speaks in her musical tongue to the man beside her, and he responds.

  “My general will ensure safe passage home for you. He has given me his pledge.”

  Beatrice’s heart begins to run around in her chest, causing her breath to come in pants. “Marguerite,” she says, “they want to send us home without our men. I won’t go!” She glares at the sultaness. “I will not leave without Charles.”

  “There are many more besides the two of us,” Marguerite says. “One hundred women, at least.”

  Shajar al-Durr lifts a penciled eyebrow. “Your men brought their wives? They must have envisioned an easy victory.”

  “They trusted in God.”

  “Foolish women, to come to this place! If the Turks knew you were here, they would invade Damietta at once. You would all be enslaved.”

  “And children. We have babies. Are they not innocent?”

  No one speaks. Beatrice thinks of her baby, crying. There stands Marguerite, implacable. Beatrice shivers.

  “Bring our men to Damietta, and I will pay you two hundred thousand livres,” Marguerite says. “We will surrender Damietta at once, and sail for home. I will send the rest to you in one year.”

  The sultaness confers with her general. His voice rises, but she silences him with a single word: Leh, with an emphatic shake of her head.

  “You must go to Acre, the Christian city, and gather the rest of your funds. When you have paid us, you may return home.”

  They kiss the sultaness’s ring. She rises, large and magnificent, and glides as gracefully as a cat to the palace door. Her companion draws his sword as she leads them out to the street; several other men join them, wielding long, curved scimitars and glaring at passersby.

  “My guards prefer that I ride. They fear that I will be attacked,” she tells Marguerite and Beatrice. “But how can I rule my people if I cannot walk among them?”

  They stop not far from the palace before a sand-colored house, plain and simply built in the Egyptian fashion—hiding a richly ornamented interior, Beatrice guesses—but with a perplexing, five-sided hole in the heavy wooden door.

  “That entry was made for your husband, to humble him,” the sultaness tells Marguerite. “To pass through it, he had to kneel.”

  They walk down a hallway hung with softly lit lamps and lined with Turkish guards who glare at them from under their red hats, their hands clutching the scimitars in their belts. They pass two doors, then climb a set of stairs to enter a modest, clean room overlooking a tree-shaded courtyard and, through a window, the sea. Louis sits on the floor, cross-legged, rocking and muttering with closed eyes. He is clean and shaven, but his tunic is ragged and dank.

  The sultaness speaks to one of the guards in her language. “Your husband was provided with suitable clothing, but he refused it,” she tells Marguerite. “He would have refused the daily walks by the sea we offered to him, but our guards forced him to go. We would compel him to eat, also, if we could.”

  Louis continues to rock.

  “I have brought your wife to you, O King,” Shajar al-Durr says. “She has traveled from Damietta to beg for your release.”

  His eyes open but he does not stand. Nor does he look at Marguerite. “Praise God, I am rescued,” he intones.

  “My lord, a king’s ransom is very high,” Marguerite says. “You must remain here for a time, until I can gather the funds the Egyptians demand.”

  He closes his eyes again. “I should have brought the queen,” he says. “She would not have failed me.”

  Marguerite turns away, blushing a bright red. “His mind is afflicted,” she says to Shajar al-Durr once they have left the room.

  “Who is the queen of whom he speaks? Aren’t you the Queen of France?”

  “In name only.”

  “You do not rule?”

  “King Louis privileges his mother. I have no real power.”

  The sultaness narrows her eyes. “You are mistaken,” she says. “I see formidable power.”

  Marguerite gives a little laugh. “Tell that to my husband. He sees only weakness—when he sees me at all.”

  “He is a fool,” Beatrice says. “A blind fool.”

  “It matters not what the French king sees, or anyone else,” the sultaness says. “True power does not rely on others’ perceptions.”

  “It comes from God, is what you mean.”

  “No,” Shajar al-Durr says.

  They follow her down the stairs. “Your husband is in this room,” the Egyptian queen says to Beatrice. A guard opens one of the closed doors to reveal a small, windowless room, dimly lit. As her eyes adjust, she sees men lying on the dirt floor. A fecal smell stings her nostrils.

  “They have caught the sickness,” the sultaness says. “From drinking bad water.”

  “Thank you, Jesus,” Charles says, struggling to his feet. She stares at him as he steps toward her, smiling broadly, for the beard sprouting on his face and the fatigue lining his eyes make him look like an old man. A guard lifts his sword to stop him before he reaches her; the sultaness speaks sharply; and then Charles’s arms are around her and she is holding him tight.

  “What took you so long?” he says. “I almost had to leave with another man.” He steps back to take in her Saracen trousers and turban, his eyes dancing.

  “For you, there is no other man.”

  “You, my love, have spoken the truth.” He lowers his head to kiss her, but his breath is so foul that she turns her head, making him laugh. “Thank God you have come to my rescue,” he murmurs. “Louis has gone mad, and so will the rest of us if we have to listen to him much longer.”

  Beside them, Marguerite catches her breath. “Jean,” she says.

  Sir Jean de Joinville, looking even worse than Charles, has stepped forward and manages a shaky bow. “My lady,” he says. “You are the vision I have been praying for.”

  Marguerite has turned pale at the sight of him, so thin his filthy clothe
s droop from his shoulders, so emaciated that his face resembles a skull—but her gaze is a lover’s gaze. Worried lest Charles take note, Beatrice holds her breath and kisses her husband’s mouth.

  “My sister has reached an agreement with the Egyptian queen,” she tells Charles. Perhaps he will be more kindly disposed toward Marguerite now, and not oppose her claiming Tarascon. “We return to Damietta today for your ransom money.”

  “Make haste,” he murmurs. “I am surrounded by incompetence, and fear it may rub off on me.”

  TWO WEEKS LATER, Beatrice and Marguerite board the galley that will carry them all to Palestine. An entire fleet waits to escort them, ships that Marguerite summoned from Acre among those blown off course last year. With them are Charles, Louis, and Alphonse, as well as Sir Joinville, Count Pierre of Brittany, and the remainder of the barons from the Mansoura prison. Louis, stricken again in his bowels, needs the help of two men to walk from the Egyptian galley to his own.

  The mood on the ship is as solemn as if they were going to a funeral—not at all as celebratory as she and Charles feel to be rid of Egypt. He takes the baby into his arms and she waves her fists, “a fighter,” he says, grinning, “like her father.”

  A melting feeling spreads through her as she watches them. Surely this is how love began between her and Papa. She has heard many times how he carried her everywhere, slung over one shoulder as if she were a sack of grain: into the great hall to hear petitions, up the stairs to his chambers for naps, on hunts—evoking exclamations from Madeleine, who was sure he would drop her, and giggles from his companions to see him carrying a baby.

  “Does something amuse you?” Charles says.

  “I was thinking that fortune has smiled on our girl, to have a papa so smitten with her.”

  He looks at her with eyes made bluer by the love they hold, and with his free arm pulls her close for a kiss. Fortune has smiled on Mama, too, she thinks as he calls for the nurse, but she does not say it, for then his arms are free and her mouth is not, and she forgets everything else but Charles.

  Later, as they lie in bed, legs wrapped around legs and arms slung across torsos, he tells her about their battles, about the errors that led to their defeat. “Louis heeded Robert’s advice on every occasion,” he says. “Robert was a brave warrior, and skilled with the sword. But mere courage does not a strategist make.”

  “As Louis undoubtedly knows now.”

  “Who knows what my brother knows? He does not speak about Robert except to praise him for his goodness—as if goodness were all one needed to prevail against the Turks. He moans constantly about how he has failed God, as if these crusades had anything to do with God.” Beatrice remembers Shajar al-Durr’s assessment: because you want what we have. “Of course, he is already planning his return.”

  Beatrice laughs. “Louis cannot get enough of Outremer? It must be the water.”

  “You laugh, but you do not know the half of it. He does not want to leave.”

  “Now you are the mad one.”

  “He says he would finish the task.”

  “Taking Jerusalem? But the Turks will have it soon enough.” As soon as she has said it, she realizes that it is true. Shajar al-Durr’s days as sultaness of Egypt are numbered. Beatrice shudders, thinking of that beautiful long neck.

  BEATRICE’S VOICE is a frog’s voice, all percussion and no melody, which is why others only rarely hear her sing. She sings today, though, as Amelie dresses her for the journey—including a stop at the island of Cyprus to collect her baby boy, whom she left one year ago vigorously suckling at a wet nurse’s breast.

  They are going home, and just in time to avoid another scorching summer in this godforsaken place. When spring’s grass perfume floateth by, then ’tis sweet song and birdlet’s cry/ Do make mine old joy come anew. Why anyone would want to fight over this barren, dusty desert is beyond her. Jesus would have preferred Provence.

  She kisses Blanche’s fat cheeks—the baby asleep with an innocence her namesake never possessed—and dances about the cool, mud-brick room with its high, narrow windows until Marguerite enters with a face like winter to dampen her spirits. Or to try.

  “You sound happy,” her sister says, her arms folded as tightly as her expression. “Betrayal suits you well.”

  Beatrice stops singing. “I am pleased to be going home,” she says, choosing her words as she goes. “I miss my baby boy.”

  “I miss my babies, too.” Her face crumples for a moment, then hardens. “But I am not going home.”

  “I wish you were.” She steps over to her sister’s side, touches her arm—and is rebuffed. “Marguerite, why don’t you come with us? Leave Louis to his delusions.”

  “Delusions?”

  “You know as well as I: Those men are gone. Louis will never get them back. He does not even know where they are.” Although the Egyptian queen released twelve thousand prisoners to them—many from previous campaigns—thousands more are missing still. Shajar al-Durr, whose ship led the grand flotilla, seemed surprised when Marguerite asked about them. More prisoners? she’d asked. Her son must have transferred them elsewhere because of crowding in Mansoura. She would find them, and order their release.

  That was more than one month ago. Now the rest of the ransom has been paid, thanks to Marguerite’s harassing of the Knights Templar, the Order of Hospitallers, the pope of Rome, the Holy Roman Emperor, and the White Queen. In fact, so much money has poured in that they could remain here for years—a prospect the very thought of which makes Beatrice cringe. She has had her fill of chickpeas. The smell of cardamom, once a pleasant fragrance, nauseates her. The Saracen tongue, like music to her at first, now sounds guttural and cruel. She would like to stick a dagger into the next Turk who ogles her body as if she were a camel for sale. What was Louis thinking when he decided to bring Marguerite along? Hadn’t he consulted with his cousin Thibaut, or the Count Pierre of Brittany, both of whom fought here ten years ago?

  “If I were to leave,” Marguerite says, “Louis would never return. He would die fighting for Jerusalem, even if he were the only knight on the field.” She glares at Beatrice. “Which he may well be after today.”

  Guilt tries to settle on Beatrice’s shoulders but she shrugs it off. “What do you expect of us?” she snaps. “Would you have us remain here in a futile battle over foreign lands while revolt brews in Provence? Should we abandon our infant son in Cyprus for the sake of the king’s tormented soul?”

  “You are leaving us to die!” Marguerite’s hands drop to her sides. “We are sisters. I thought that meant something to you.”

  “It means more than you could imagine,” Beatrice says. “But it does not mean everything.”

  “Charles is the reason.” Beatrice looks away. In fact, she would have remained here a little while in hopes of convincing her sister to depart with them, but Charles refused.

  “Jerusalem is lost,” he said. “Now we must return home, or risk losing Provence, as well. And I will not lose Provence.”

  “God damn his selfishness!” Beatrice flinches, surprised, at Marguerite’s sudden shout. “Charles cares about no one else, not about you, and certainly not about me. I feel sorry for you, being married to that monster.”

  “How dare you speak of my husband in that way?” Beatrice turns on her. “The faults you find in Charles are the faults you possess in yourself.”

  “Such as?” Having goaded her into a fight, Marguerite now becomes the calm one, the rational one. Beatrice wants to strike her.

  “When have you ever thought of me?” Beatrice cries. “You and Eléonore—like two pearls in an oyster! You talk about family, then turn on me because Papa loved me the most.”

  “He did not love you the most. You were his amusement after Eléonore and I left home.”

  “That is not what he said.” Beatrice blinks back tears. “He told me many times that I was his favorite daughter. He said God had saved the best for last. That is why he left Provence to me.”

&
nbsp; “He left Provence to you because he knew no man would want to marry you otherwise.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Marguerite shrugs. “God gave so much beauty to Sanchia that he had little remaining for you.”

  “Oh, were you once prettier than I?” Beatrice laughs. “All those bitter years in the French court have certainly taken their toll.”

  “You, on the other hand, know nothing of hardship, having been spoiled all your life.”

  “Spoiled, me? Who is the most powerful queen in the world, throwing tantrums because she didn’t get all she wanted in her papa’s will?” Charles, she suddenly realizes, will never agree to give Tarascon to Marguerite. Oh, God, how could she have made such a pledge? “How spoiled are you, to demand Tarascon from me when Provence is all I have?”

  Fear splashes like cold water on Marguerite’s face. Beatrice wants to laugh again. That will teach her to attack Beatrice of Provence.

  “That has been resolved,” her sister says. “We do not need to discuss Tarascon further.”

  “Resolved? Have you decided to let the matter drop?”

  Marguerite stares at her. “Of course, now that you have awarded Tarascon to me.”

  “What?” Beatrice affects a puzzled frown. “I am sorry. I don’t know what you are talking about.”

  “When you gave birth to Blanche, you said that I could have Tarascon.”

  “Did I? I must have been delirious. Of course I cannot give Tarascon to you without consulting Charles.”

  “You made a pledge!” Marguerite’s eyes are wild and tearful. “You cannot go back on your word!”

  Beatrice shrugs. After all her sister has said to her today, she cares not a whit what she thinks of her. “You cannot expect me to honor promises made under duress.”

  “You bitch!” Marguerite snatches up the nearest object—a miniature stone statue of the Virgin Mary—and hurls it at her. It hits the far wall and thuds to the floor. “I knew you would renege on your promise. Did I say that you would be unhappy with Charles? I take back those words. You two are just alike, and perfect for each other. You’ll suffer in hell together, too.”