Four Sisters, All Queens

by Jones, Sherry

  “Who is going to hell? You just threw the Virgin Mary against the wall.”

  “And how I regret missing my mark.” Marguerite speaks in a menacing undertone. “But I wasn’t speaking of the afterlife. I mean to make you suffer in this one.”

  “I would like to see you try.” Beatrice tries to keep her voice light.

  “I will do more than try, sister. You will see. I haven’t lived with Blanche de Castille for all these years without learning a few things.”

  “You can’t hurt me,” Beatrice says, but she doesn’t sound sure.

  “We shall soon find out,” Marguerite says. She starts to go, but then stops and turns around. “There is another thing you said while you were in labor, gripping my hand because you were afraid you might die. Remember? You told me that you’ve never felt like one of us, like a true sister of Savoy. Now I’ll tell you the truth: You are not one of us. And you never will be.”

  Marguerite

  A Slow Breeze

  Acre, 1252

  Thirty-one years old

  SHE MUST NOT smile. Marguerite lowers her head and closes her eyes. Beside her on his throne, Louis cries out.

  “Ma mère! Oh, Lord, take me, too.”

  If only God were a djinni in a lamp, as in the Saracen tale, granting any uttered wish. Immediately she banishes the thought: in France, one cannot be queen if there is no king.

  Marguerite turns to regard him, the father of her five living children and one yet unborn, he for whose sake she has remained in this godforsaken land. As he sobs and crumples to the floor in a most unkingly fashion, something seems to snap inside her. Her time of waiting has ended.

  “Help the king to the chapel,” she instructs the guards who have rushed forth to peel Louis from the floor. When they have gone, she remains in place, summoning grief. She will be expected to cry.

  Blanche de Castille is dead, her heart frozen by disuse, no doubt. France has no ruler: She and Louis must return to Paris. Home. She thinks of Lou-Lou, ten years old now, four when she left him. Reared by the queen mother, a fate she would not have wished for any child, especially her own. She thinks of Isabelle, her only daughter, thirteen now, become a young woman without her mother’s influence. Keep them safe, Holy Mother, until I return. A knight watches her, certainly wondering why she sits so placidly while grief prostrates her husband. She rises and walks to the chapel.

  Louis lies on the floor, as expected, crouched over as if to protect himself from injury, banging his head against the tile like a heathen Saracen in prayer. Surely such a show of emotion is unwarranted; already the servants snigger over Louis’s floggings and the scabs on his back and chest caused by his hair shirt. Since his defeat at Mansoura and the loss of sixty thousand men, no punishment is too severe for him, no penance too exacting.

  “Darling,” she says, “my condolences over your mother’s death.” She kneels beside him and places a hand on his arm, but he seems not to notice. “I know how much you loved her. She was a fine woman.”

  “You never thought so,” he says. He sits up and glares at her, eyes bleary with tears and a want of sleep, for he now prays in his chapel all night, every night. “You hated my mother. Admit it.”

  “Blanche de Castille was a shrewd and capable queen. She made France the force in the world that it is today.”

  “She despised you. She said that you were not good enough for me.”

  Marguerite withdraws her hand. “I came to comfort you. But I seem to be doing the opposite.”

  “She wanted me to marry a girl of distinction, someone who would elevate our status. You were the heiress to Provence—or so your uncles led us to believe.”

  “You were happy enough to marry me, as I recall.” Her voice rises.

  “I was taken by your beauty, as Adam was captivated by Eve. Mother warned me. She told me that beauty does not endure, that women grow fat from bearing children.”

  Marguerite stands, her hands pressed against her belly, heavy again with his offspring. “I will be in my chambers, packing.”

  “Packing? Are you taking a journey?”

  “I assumed we would return to Paris. No one is ruling the kingdom now.”

  “Alphonse can take the throne. God’s work remains to be done here.”

  Marguerite’s eyes fill with tears. “We are not going home?” She wants to pounce on him and beat him with her fists, pummel away his notions of saving foot soldiers who cannot be found; of conquering Jerusalem without the troops Charles and Alphonse promised to bring; of punishing himself for the foolish behavior of his brother Robert, who has already paid the price with his life.

  He scowls. “I am sick of hearing you beg to go home. You know the Lord has called me to this place, for this purpose. I must not forsake him as others have done.”

  “God didn’t call you here, but the pope of Rome,” she says. “God loves the Muslims as much as the Christians, or as little, from what I see. He does not seem to care much who commands the holy city.”

  “Blasphemy!” Louis cries. “Rarely have I known a woman so bold and yet so feebleminded. I should have left you in France.”

  “Perhaps I shall go there now,” she says. “The kingdom needs at least one of us to rule.”

  “That is the last thing my mother would have wanted. Not that you care about her wishes.” He starts to sob again, his arms folded across his stomach, and he bends down anew to bang his forehead on the floor.

  Tears burn Marguerite’s eyes as she hurries to her room, conscious of the sideways glances of servants who must have heard Louis’s outburst. In her chambers, she sends out Gisele and her other ladies and sits in silence, contemplating her babies, trying to conjure their faces, their smells, the feeling of them snuggled next to her, but their names are only words in her mouth and their memories nothing more than the taste of salt on her tongue.

  “My lady.” Joinville has come into the room; he sits beside her on the bed and places his arm around her shoulders. Marguerite at last begins to cry, glad to press her face against his chest. He rubs her back; she breathes him in, remembers that returning to Paris means losing him to his wife and children in Champagne. Her tears subside.

  “Why do you cry, Margi?” he says. “Surely not for the queen mother, whom you hated.”

  To tell the truth would be to confess that she never wanted to remain here, that, if asked for her advice, she would have urged Louis to return home with Charles and Alphonse and the rest of their men. She imagines how Jean, who urged Louis to stay, would withdraw his arm from her if he knew her true feelings.

  “I am crying not for Blanche, but for Louis,” she says. “The poor man is heartbroken. And my children: what will happen to them now, without their grandmother to protect them?”

  The lie succeeds. Joinville’s gaze softens. “I have never known a woman so pure of heart,” he says. “When I think of how the king neglects you—”

  “I don’t mind,” she says. “As long as I have you.”

  His kiss is soft, barely a brush of her lips. His breath is warm on her face. He smells of the sun and strong tea. Marguerite sighs, and he drops his arm from her shoulders. When she opens her eyes, he has moved away from her on the bed. She sees fear in his eyes. She suppresses a smile for the second time that day.

  “Please forgive me,” he says.

  “Forgive you, Jean? For comforting me?”

  “It will not happen again. I promise.”

  “Do not make that promise. I don’t want it.”

  “Because you fear I won’t keep it?”

  “No,” she says. She lifts her face, lets him see her happiness. “Because I fear that you will.”

  SHE SLEEPS, AND dreams of Beatrice in plate armor, a sword in one hand and a shield bearing the Provençal coat of arms in the other. Her sister stands atop the wall surrounding the castle at Tarascon, impervious to the arrows hurtling upward from the ground below. Marguerite takes aim and, with a twang of the bowstring, aims for her sister’s hear
t. The arrow sticks—but Beatrice does not fall. Marguerite hits her again, but she remains upright. A third arrow hits its mark, yet still she stands. Marguerite, puzzled, lifts off the ground in flight and sees, behind her sister, Charles of Anjou propping her up. She fires another arrow, this time at him—but he moves her sister, using her as a shield, and the arrow pierces Beatrice’s forehead. Her eyes roll back and blood gushes from the wound. Charles looks at her and laughs.

  And then she is awakened by soft kisses on her eyes and cheeks, and hands stroking her breasts and stomach. She opens her eyes to see Jean, soft hair falling across his face, his brown eyes smiling at her.

  “You were having a nightmare,” he says. “I thought it might be time to wake up.” She opens her arms to him and Beatrice dissolves from her mind like fog overwhelmed by the sun.

  Gisele’s secret knock on their door interrupts them. She stands at the foot of the bed, blushing, and informs Marguerite that Louis is coming to take them all back to France. “He arrives this afternoon, and wants to set sail at first light tomorrow. When shall we begin to pack your belongings?”

  Marguerite sends her out, wanting just a few minutes more with Jean. “This is the happiest day of my life, and the saddest,” she says to him.

  “Sad because of our sin?” His eyes turn down at the corners.

  “Is it a sin to love each other? To believe that would sadden me. But, no, I will be sorry to say good-bye to you, Jean. To lose you so soon after consummating our love—”

  He hushes her with a kiss. “We are not parted yet.”

  “But it may be difficult on the ship.”

  “Our journey will be long.”

  “The longer, the better.”

  He kisses her again. “One month, or one week, we will be together again. I promise it to you. Love will find a way.”

  When Louis arrives at the castle in Jaffa that afternoon in bare feet and the rags he has worn these last four years, Marguerite feels compelled to admonish him. “I hope you plan to don your furs and silks before we land in France. You look like a beggar, not at all befitting a ruler.”

  Louis narrows his eyes. “Who is this brash wife, telling me how I should dress? Has the desert heat affected your mind?”

  “Your subjects will accuse you of the same if you go into France in those clothes.”

  His smile does not reach his eyes. “I will gladly let you dress me, my queen, on one condition: that you allow me to choose your attire, as well. Paring down your extravagant clothing budget would no doubt save the kingdom a fortune.”

  This from a man who has spent one million livres fortifying castles in Outremer—nearly all the money in the French treasury. Marguerite presses her lips together and he turns away, but she remembers her night with Jean and the precautions they did not take.

  “My lord,” she says, unfastening her gown. He turns toward her, and she lets it drop to the floor. Louis’s eyes flicker. For all his inattention, she can still evoke his desire.

  “Is this the apparel you had in mind?” she says.

  When their ship sets sail the next afternoon, tears sting Marguerite’s eyes as she watches the shoreline fade. She remembers the queen Shajar al-Durr, her strange beauty, her determination in the face of danger. She is married now to her Turkish general, her only recourse, Marguerite supposes, after the Muslim caliph refused to allow a woman to rule. She thinks of Joinville’s struggle to his feet in the Mansoura prison, how his eyes shone as he crossed the room to her—in contrast to Louis, who sat in the corner and pretended she did not exist. She thinks of her babies born, Jean Tristan in Damietta, Pierre in Acre, and now, Blanche, born in Jaffa only a few months ago. She would have named the baby Eléonore, but Louis forbade it. The White Queen’s death has left France vulnerable to an English invasion because the truce between the kingdoms has not been renewed. The queen mother is to blame, her sister has written, but Louis points the finger at Eléonore and Henry and their hunger for French lands.

  Louis stands beside her at the rail, waving good-bye to the Christians amassed on the beach, who toss flowers to him. “Our most pious king,” they call him. “A true saint.”

  He sees her tears, and arches his brows.

  “How touching that you have found affection for the land where our Lord once walked,” he says. “It is a pity that you did not experience it while we lived here. I would have enjoyed even one day without complaints from you.”

  She thinks of the laughter she and Joinville shared in her chambers while Louis camped on the Damietta beach with his men, those long nights of talk when she found a friend so like her that they might have been brother and sister—but, thank God, are not. She remembers their first kiss, six months ago when she was heavy with child and sorrow over Louis’s decision to remain in Acre even after his mother’s death. She prayed to the Virgin Mother all night after that, begging her to change Louis’s mind. In the miraculous way of the Lord, his mind did change. The citizens of Acre, when they heard that Louis intended to remain, sent their most prominent men to urge him to go. They said they were thinking of France, but Marguerite knew better: After she and Louis arrived, the Saracens increased their attacks on the city. It is why he sent her—with Jean—to Jaffa.

  The daylight hours stretch and yawn like a cat in the sun. Marguerite has nothing to do except try to help her children amuse themselves and nothing to read but the same worn psalter that she brought with her six years ago. She longs to pass the time with Jean, but Louis must have him ever at hand, “my most faithful knight,” he calls him, which makes Joinville blush with guilt and shame—but not Marguerite. If she loves another, Louis has only himself to blame.

  As in Damietta, they steal time together when everyone else sleeps—but not, now, to talk. Marguerite counts the nights. When they have seventeen to go, she closes her eyes and inhales him, moving her nostrils over his hair (sea spray), his back (sweat), his flanks (thyme). On the thirteenth night before they land, she tastes him, committing to memory the softness of his earlobes, the sweetness at the backs of his knees. When seven nights remain, he whips off her gown and presses her body to his, inch to inch, until they are practically one, and they whisper their love until they doze, warmed by the heat from the stove. Until there is an acrid smell and Marguerite cries out, and he sees a flame pass by the bed and the cabin door open and he leaps up and sees her run naked out onto the ship’s deck and throw overboard her burning nightgown.

  She slams the door behind her, laughing, her body whirring with life, and fastens the latch and pushes him onto the bed. “I see fear on your face,” she breathes.

  “We nearly set the ship on fire.”

  “What do you expect from a love such as ours?” She laughs again. Someone knocks on the door.

  “My lady?” They hear the quavering voice of Bartolomeu, Louis’s chamberlain. “The king sent me. We heard there was an incident? Are you well?”

  “All is well, thank you,” she calls. “I left my nightgown too close to the stove is all. I cast it into the sea.”

  “And the Lord Joinville? I have just called at his cabin and he does not answer. His Grace is unable to sleep and is summoning him.”

  “He was here a few moments ago, making sure I was not hurt,” she says. “He went to see the king, I believe.”

  “Very well, my lady. Most likely we have only just missed each other.” Even as Bartolomeu speaks, Joinville is pulling on his leggings. Marguerite shakes her head no, but he dons his tunic. He has his slippers on and is fastening his mantle when the old chamberlain steps away.

  “Bartolomeu is so slow he won’t shuffle back to Louis until tomorrow morning,” she says, unfastening his mantle. “Louis sends him out to be rid of him. He talks in streaks, which Louis cannot abide.”

  “Marguerite. I must go to the king.” His kiss is perfunctory. “I will see you tomorrow night.”

  He opens the door, and is gone. Marguerite stands naked without even a nightgown to keep her warm. She throws open t
he door and sees the deck empty except for him.

  “Jean!” she hisses. “Come back! When you are finished with Louis, come back! No matter what the time.”

  She cannot even see the sun when she awakens, so high is it overhead. Her head throbs as she peers out the little window. She hears a knocking at her door, and Gisele’s call.

  “My lady, are you awake and ready to be dressed? Jean Tristan is crying for you.”

  Marguerite opens the door to her maid, whose cheeks the ocean breeze has kissed to pinkness. Gisele must have a sea captain in her ancestry, sailing invigorates her so—or else, her queen’s love affair quickens her blood.

  “Did Sir Lancelot come last night?” she asks as she rolls a pair of leggings over Marguerite’s feet and calves.

  “Don’t call him that!” She forces a laugh. “Yes, he was here. But only for a short time. The king summoned him.”

  “In the dark hours?”

  “I asked him to return, but he never did.”

  “Perhaps you fell asleep and did not hear him.”

  Marguerite says nothing. She lay awake until sunrise. Jean did not return.

  She passes by his cabin on her way to her children, but the door is closed and she dares not peer into his window with men milling about. She finds Jean Tristan in his nurse’s lap, crying. His ear hurts, and, fearing an infection, she sends for the healer, who prescribes garlic oil. There is no garlic on the ship, so she makes do with warm compresses and a mother’s love, holding him for an hour, rocking him, and singing softly until at last he falls asleep. The nurse takes him from her and she slips out in search of Joinville.

  She wanders the ship, Gisele beside her and sheltering her from the sun with a parasol, the best discovery she made in Outremer. As they stroll, Marguerite looks to her left and to her right, seeking Jean among the men clustered on the deck, but he is nowhere. She steps into the dining room, where members of the crew are erecting tables, and then into the chapel. The young priest approaches with a shining face, as if she were the Holy Virgin. Of course he thinks she has come here to pray, or to confess.