Four Sisters, All Queens

by Jones, Sherry

  (You seduced my husband, you whore.) No, she could never use such language, not even to the devil, not even to this woman who has placed Richard in peril. He seemed so loving toward Sanchia last night. She thought she had won his heart at last. Now Floria has ruined everything. But if she can make the Jewess go away, she might gain his love again, in time—and lead him back to the Lord.

  She knocks. Floria’s eyes pop open when she sees Sanchia, as if she were a murderer or a ghost.

  “My lady,” she says with a curtsey. “Forgive me for greeting you in my apron. You have surprised me.” She brushes back a curl, smudging flour on her cheek.

  “Will you invite me in? I must talk with you privately.”

  She steps aside, allowing Sanchia in. For a wealthy man, Abraham lives in quite a modest house, just one large room with a dirt floor. The silk coverlet on the bed in the far corner is the only sign of prosperity—and the copper pans hanging on hooks near the cook fire in the center of the room. Floria moves to the wooden table and lays a cloth over the loaves she has formed, then removes her apron and smoothes her hair. Although her face glistens with perspiration and her skin is ruddy with the heat of the cook fire, she is so lovely that Sanchia has to look away.

  When she rejoins Sanchia, Floria stretches her mouth across her teeth as if doing so were painful. Would the countess enjoy a drink of wine or ale? Would she care to sit? Sanchia declines. She does not intend to remain here long.

  “Richard and I depart for London today,” she says. “When we return, you will be gone from Berkhamsted.”

  Is that worry in her eyes? Good. “But Berkhamsted is my home. I do not desire to leave it.”

  “I am aware of your desires. And I could not be less concerned about them.” Thanks be to God for making her tall. She has always envied her petite sisters, but suddenly she understands the advantage of height. Surely she intimidates the Jewess, towering over her so.

  But Floria does not appear intimidated. She looks Sanchia in the eyes, bold wanton that she is. “Because of last night? My lady, all is not as you think.”

  “I know what I saw.” My God, is she going to deny it? “And I am determined not to see it again.”

  “Then—forgive my saying so—you will need to blind yourself.”

  “No, I need only to rid our household of you.”

  “If you think that, my lady, then you are already blind.”

  Her laugh is incredulous. “If only I were! Then I would not have had to watch you flaunting yourself like a Jezebel, tempting my husband into sin.”

  “If not for me, the lord Richard would be free of sin? If you think so, then you are the only one at Berkhamsted. His appetites are widely known.”

  “I caught you in bed together!” Sanchia shouts. “Where is your shame?” Her clenching fist closes around something; she looks down to see the chess piece still in her hand. She wants to hit Floria in the mouth with it, to stop her ugly words. She would bash it into her teeth, feel them crunch against the ivory, hear her beg for mercy. She opens her hand, lets the piece fall. “You are a married woman.”

  “My husband is an old man, with no appetite.”

  “And so he does not mind if you indulge yours? Or—does he know about you and my husband?” Perhaps Abraham is using his wife to ingratiate himself with Richard. That would make her a whore, indeed. “I wonder what he would say if I told him?”

  Fear, at last, crosses Floria’s face. Sanchia wants to laugh. “The consequences would be dire.”

  “I will gladly tell him if I see or hear of you in Berkhamsted—or anywhere in Cornwall—when Richard and I return.”

  A tear glistens in the corner of her eye. “The blood will be on your hands, then.”

  “Do you dare to threaten me?”

  “Abraham becomes mad with rage if another man looks at me.”

  “All the more reason for you to depart.” She turns to go, but Floria stops her with a hand on her arm. Sanchia jerks free from her touch.

  “I cannot leave, my lady! My parents are dead. Please, I have nowhere to go. Especially in my condition.”

  Sanchia gasps and turns, her mouth open, to stare at Floria. The Jewess’s face is slick with tears, just as she had imagined—but the satisfaction she had hoped for does not come.

  “I am pregnant,” Floria says in a low voice. “With the lord Richard’s child.”

  “My God!” Sanchia cries. “Pregnant?”

  “Shhh! I beg you, lower your voice.”

  “Why should I, when all the world will soon know?” Dear Lord, and with a Jew! The scandal will destroy him. “You must leave this place as soon as possible—and without a word to Richard, do you hear?”

  “But how will I provide for the child, my lady? Surely you wouldn’t want to cause an innocent babe to suffer.”

  “You should have thought of that before you seduced my husband.”

  “No, my lady. It wasn’t like that. Richard takes what he wants, you know.” Floria clings to her arm as Sanchia starts for the door.

  “Don’t touch me, you filth!” she cries, and flings the Jewess to the floor, where she belongs.

  And then she runs. She runs as she has not done since her childhood, when she and Margi and Elli would race to the sea, her long legs carrying her past them, at last, the year she turned eight. Now those long legs take her out the door so fast she forgets the blond head as soon as she’s seen it, over the grasses and the flowering heath and into the chapel, where she falls on her knees before the Virgin Mother. Never has she felt so alone. Please guide me, Dear Mother. What is she going to do? How can she win Richard back without causing harm to the babe, which would be a greater sin than his?

  And yet the Jewess cannot remain here. Richard is fair-haired and has blue eyes. Were the child to resemble him, not only Abraham but all of Cornwall would guess the truth. All of England would know—the whole world! He would never be able to bear the disgrace.

  She must save him. But how? Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Please help me! Floria’s child must not be seen. Her pregnant belly must not be seen—for who would believe that old Abraham is the father? Yet how can she send Floria away and be the cause of the child’s misery or death? Then blood would taint not only her hands, but also her soul. Her stomach twists and she moans, begging God to relieve her of this burden—for why should she bear it when she has done nothing wrong? Abraham married Floria. He, not she, bears responsibility for the child—and for its mother. He, not Sanchia, should decide Floria’s fate.

  Time is running out. Richard will return at any moment, ready to go. She runs up the stairs to the counting room, jumping in her skin, her teeth clacking together, but Abraham is not there. His chair is empty at the table stacked with coins. The door to the treasury, always locked, hangs open for anyone to loot. She touches his still-warm seat. Sweat breaks out on her brow. Foreboding fills her mouth with a metal taste.

  She calls his name tentatively, half-expecting him to pop out from behind a door, or from inside the treasury, laughing at her stupidity. But he is gone, and strangely so, for any servant could walk in and take whatever he wanted. She steps into the treasury, her eyes roaming over the sacks of silver, years of riches gleaned from Richard’s tin mines, from his brother the king, from the taxes paid by his Jews. One of these sacks alone would take care of Floria’s needs for years.

  The blood will be on your hands. But Abraham need never know. Floria could disappear and her husband would not know where she had gone, or why. There would be no scandal. Sanchia would take the secret to her grave.

  She picks up a sack of coins so heavy that she must hold it with both hands. To hide it, she tucks it under one arm, under her surcoat, and draws her mantle about her shoulders. Then she heads across the meadow again to present Floria with her gift. She imagines the shine of gratitude in her eyes. Thank you, Mother Mary, for showing me the way.

  She hears the groaning before she reaches the house. The sight of the open doo
r brings her running—but she stops at the threshold. Within, Abraham kneels, weeping, on the floor beside Floria, in the very spot where Sanchia left her. “Wake up, darling,” he begs. “Come back to me, my love.” He gathers her head in his arms, pulls her to his chest for an embrace, but she does not move. Her head lolls. Her face is as pale as water. Her lips are faintly blue. A pool of blood spreads behind her head.

  “Help,” Sanchia squeaks, but no one hears her except Abraham, who jerks his head around. His pupils are so large they engulf his eyes in blackness, making them look like fathomless holes, like sunken wells of hatred. Suddenly, she understands why Floria feared him. Poor Floria.

  “You killed her,” she says, holding onto the doorjamb as her legs begin to shake.

  He picks something up from the floor, then raises it for her to see: the frowning queen from the chess set that she had brought from Richard’s chambers, matted with blood and hair.

  “No, Countess,” he says. “I didn’t kill her. You did.”

  Eléonore

  Family Comes First

  Edinburgh, 1255

  Thirty-two years old

  THERE IS NO carriage for Eléonore, not on this journey, only the fastest horses in the royal stable racing her and Henry with John Maunsell and one hundred fifty knights through the northern forests and across the blooming heath to Edinburgh, where their daughter Margaret may or may not be alive.

  This ride requires all her skill, all her concentration. The terrain is unfamiliar and she has not ridden a galloping horse in many years, not since her days became too filled with children for the hunt. Unable to find a tutor to engage Margaret’s keen mind—She is a girl, and does not need to know Latin, her last teacher sniffed—Eléonore began teaching her children. Her efforts have borne rich fruit: Edward is a bold and daring knight—too bold, at times—with the confidence of a king. Beatrice is a formidable opponent in the art of debate who, like her mother, can ride and hunt as well as any man. Gentle Edmund is a philosopher, wise beyond his years, and a comfort to his mother. The baby Katharine, born deaf and mute and with a peculiar wizened appearance, is sweeter than any person on this Earth, bestowing kisses and sitting in laps with her arms around the necks of her nurses, her brothers and sisters, her mother and father. Looking at books, however, is her chief joy.

  But Margaret, with her keen wit, holds the place nearest the center of Eléonore’s heart. Her ready laugh always bubbles near the surface of her calm strength, making her every bit like her namesake. There were years, yes, when Marguerite’s laughter went unheard. That harpy Blanche de Castille has strangled our Margi’s mirth with her iron hand, their mother said once, but Eléonore never believed it. She knew her sister could not be repressed for long. And she was right: Returned from Outremer, with Blanche in the grave and Louis descending into madness, Marguerite, now ruling France, laughs more loudly than ever, not caring who thinks such behavior unseemly for a woman. How gay and confident she appeared at the Christmas gathering last year! Yet she seems, also, to have absorbed some of the White Queen’s less desirable qualities.

  The shock and hurt on their sister Beatrice’s face during the Christmas feast, when Marguerite denied her a seat at the royal table, haunts Eléonore still. Should she have intervened more forcefully?

  She did try. “Beatrice is our sister, Margi. Family comes first, remember? Family is more important than anything, more important than land or castles, more important than pride,” she said.

  “She may be your sister, but she is mine no longer,” was Margi’s response, shocking Eléonore into silence. By saying nothing, did she betray Beatrice? Should she have done as Sanchia did, and moved to Beatrice’s table? But of course she could not have done so, not when she and Margi had just begun the work of establishing peace between their countries for the first time in nearly two hundred years.

  Each of them has her reasons for wanting peace. Marguerite fears Henry might try again to re-take the lands his father lost. France would fare badly in a battle now. The Outremer campaign cost everything the kingdom owned, and more—including King Louis’s interest in this world. Eléonore, on the other hand, wants France’s help against the rebellion Simon is plotting.

  Simon has reached the limits of his tolerance, and Eléonore cannot blame him. Henry has refused to pay the money that by right should be his and Eleanor’s. Yet she cannot criticize Henry’s obstinacy, either. Simon’s acerbic tongue has estranged Henry from him. When Eléonore declined to argue for him any more, he turned his vitriol on her. He now mutters against her, calling her a “foreigner,” which is laughable considering his own French ties, and blaming her for the fiasco in Gascony. She supported the rebel leader, her foreign cousin, he has been saying. She will do anything to further her family’s interests, even if it means harming England’s.

  But of course she cannot argue with Henry, not even to help Simon. As much as Henry loves her, he is proud. He insists on loyalty. If you are to be my queen, then you must work with me and not against me. She had to agree, or be banished permanently from court. Now when she disagrees with him, she does so privately, and is careful to hide her displeasure when he ignores her counsel—which is rare.

  Meanwhile, Simon is guilty of the very crime—selfishness—of which he accuses her. Ejected from Gascony, then recalled to help save it from the rebels, Simon struts like a rooster before the barons’ council, boasting of his worth to the kingdom while maligning its king. He blames Henry for the loss of Eleanor’s dower, although William Marshal’s relations have divided among themselves the lands and money he promised to her. He demands that Henry return Pembroke to him, although William de Valence holds legitimate claims to the castle. He insists that Henry pay him a higher sum for his expenditures in Gascony than the court required.

  Eléonore has become increasingly alarmed as the barons, one by one, shift their allegiance to Simon. He tells them what they want to hear: That “foreigners” have taken the wealth that should belong to them, that their king’s “foreign” queen and “alien” brothers are enriching their relatives at the expense of the English. What is more, he leads the resistance to every new tax Henry tries to levy, saying that England should reserve its funds for England, not spend money on “foreign” lands such as Gascony and Sicily. Then, having turned the barons’ attention inward, he sails to France to praise King Louis and make unflattering remarks about Henry. So far, his tactics have failed, Marguerite says. Louis and Henry are like brothers, with a shared love for God, art, and architecture. Bringing them together for Christmas is the best idea the sisters ever had. A peace treaty will certainly follow.

  France’s treasury is finally recovering, thanks to Marguerite’s capable management. With peace between their kingdoms, France can help England should Simon stage a coup. And if Henry, under the treaty’s terms, gives up his claims to Normandy, Poitou, and Aquitaine, the barons may be satisfied at last. Battling across the channel has depleted their purses, too, causing much grumbling, especially since they also must defend their castles in the Marches, on England’s border, against the Welsh noble Llywelyn—and against the rebellious Scots.

  Dusk falls as they arrive, horses lathering from the long ride, at the timbered gates to the massive Edinburgh Castle. The fortress sits high on a rock bluff, its towers and turrets and buildings seemingly impenetrable. They expect to be turned away, they and England’s finest knights—including Edward and his cousin Henry, Richard’s son. If they cannot enter the castle, they will lay siege to it.

  Behind her, she hears Edward and Henry discussing strategies: Edward has learned the formula for Greek fire, and is eager to try it.

  But Margaret may be in danger. They have heard nothing since the physician Reginald of Bath sent word that their daughter was indeed ill. The melancholic humours have overwhelmed her. She refused to leave her bed, he wrote, and would take only a small portion of food. I shall demand a change in her circumstance. Two days later, Reginald of Bath was dead. Poison, some whisper. W
ill the Scottish lords kill Margaret next?

  To her relief, they are admitted at once, Eléonore and Henry and John Maunsell as well as Edward, Henry, and several of Edward’s Lusignan cousins. Soon they are in the great hall, a vast but narrow room with a steeply angling timber ceiling. The regent Walter Comyn sits on the throne as if he were born to it. His clothing—a hood on his head!—was fashionable in England a century ago. His eyes glint like steel in the sunlight as he nods to Henry, but soften at the sight of Eléonore. During Margaret’s wedding Walter sent sly, winsome looks her way, and danced her until she was footsore. Eléonore, not Henry, will make their case to him.

  For the occasion, she has removed her fillet and crespinettes and allowed her hair to hang loose, in the Scottish fashion. Walter of Comyn licks his lips as she speaks. They wish for an audience with their daughter and with King Alexander, she says. Reginald of Bath’s sudden death has alarmed them, and they need to know that Margaret is well.

  The regent claps his hands, and a young man comes running from across the room. “Send for the young queen,” he says—but Eléonore interrupts.

  “We wish to visit her chambers. We would observe her living conditions.”

  With a snap of his fingers, he dismisses the youth, then turns to Henry. Margaret’s misfortunes, he says, are Henry’s fault. He should not have demanded King Alexander’s allegiance to England. The Scottish barons are determined to prevent the young king’s making such a pledge.