Four Sisters, All Queens

by Jones, Sherry

  Richard is awake, as she knew he would be. He likes to stay up late with his money and his books and his men—Mr. Arnold; his son Henry, when he is not off competing in tournaments with Edward; and Abraham. She thought he might smile at the sight of her sitting up in bed, but instead he frowns as though she has disappointed him yet again.

  “Should you lie down? Do not over exert yourself,” he says.

  “I am much improved,” she says when he has sat on the bed beside her, “and I have some matters to discuss with you.” He must intervene with the barons on behalf of Henry and Eléonore. “Their lives are in danger. Only you can help them.”

  He pats her hand. “I will take care of my business as it befits me,” he says. “As I always do.”

  “Don’t speak as though I were a child,” she says. He lifts his eyebrows in surprise. “Your first ‘business’ ought to be to your brother and my sister. Family comes first. And if not for them, you would have nothing.”

  “Henry might say the same of me. If not for my loans, he would have forfeited Gascony.”

  “And that is as it should be. Each of you depends on the other. I have a letter from Eléonore. Richard, you must assuage the barons. You must convince them to placate the people. Simon de Montfort is not our friend. Henry and Eléonore are.”

  Abraham arrives with a tray bearing her goblet and a flagon. “My lady is much improved, I hear,” he says. “Strong enough for a bit of wine, perhaps?”

  Richard’s frown deepens. “Or strong enough to say ‘no.’” Abraham takes a step back and begins to turn toward the door.

  “No!” She looks at Richard and laughs. “I mean, no, I would love a glass. I feel so much better; it is time to celebrate, don’t you think?” Abraham sets the tray on the bed and fills her goblet. “Richard, join me! Just this once.” Perhaps the feeling of the wine in his blood will warm him to her.

  “I will fetch your goblet, my lord,” Abraham says, lifting the tray. Will he take it all away again?

  “Nonsense! He can drink from mine. Set down the tray, Abraham.” He stands in place with his mouth open, waiting for Richard’s instructions. His face is strangely pale.

  “I will gladly bring you a goblet of your own, Master Richard,” he says. “It will be more celebratory to drink a toast together. And my lady’s illness might be contagious.”

  He would have become ill by now if she were contagious. She would say so but Richard is shaking his head and saying, no, he does not care for wine no matter how it’s watered, and that he needs nothing to drink at the present.

  “Since you are recovering, I will leave tomorrow for England,” he says. “You are right, my dear, I must intervene for my brother, who, as usual, cannot manage his own affairs.”

  Sanchia lifts the goblet to her lips and drinks deeply, relishing the deep fruit, the heat in her veins. Abraham fills her goblet again, although it is only half-empty. “Do not dull my senses before I have fully regained them,” she says, laughing again.

  “You do not need it, Sanchia,” Richard says. “You are enough without it.”

  She takes another gulp, and thinks of how she will leave him soon, how she will go to Hailes Abbey and live there, and never have another drop of wine to drink. It will be her sacrifice.

  “You may go,” she says to Abraham, “and take the flagon with you. This will be my last drink.” She lifts the goblet in a toast to Richard. “Out of honor to my husband.” Richard clasps her hand. He thinks, of course, that she is speaking of him.

  OH, THE BURNING, the burning, there is a fire in her belly, she cries aloud and then she is vomiting pure red liquid, this is my blood which was shed for you and Elise is crying out as her gown is splattered—Sanchia’s gown, one of her favorites, a gift from Elli. Elli always loved fashion. “Richard!” she cries, there is something she needs to tell him, about Abraham, but he is gone, gone to England, and her bowels spill in the bed and she is cold as they clean her, shivering.

  “Richard!” Here is Melody, another of her ladies, wearing Sanchia’s dress of green with roses of red cloth, and Abraham then, when all have gone, grinning and pouring wine down her throat.

  “You called my name. I knew what you wanted.”

  “You are poisoning me,” she says, and he nods. Killed my wife, you murdered her. Sanchia’s body seizes and twists, a rustle in the bushes as she fled from Floria’s house, a glimpse of flaxen hair, Richard’s hair. Not Abraham, not Abraham. Richard’s coldness to her not love for Floria, not love but the opposite of love.

  Pain shoots up her arm; her heart begins to clang like a struck bell. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Where are you? Dear God! My Lord!

  I am here. You are She.

  Eléonore

  A Woman’s Heart

  London, 1263

  Forty years old

  THE ANGER IS what stuns her, the twisted and violent faces of the crowd pressing up against the walls surrounding the Tower of London. These are not the usual villeins and beggars (for the poor always have grievances). From her window she sees merchants, too, in their colorful linens and silks, and the cone-shaped hats of Jews, and old women, and young women with babies in their arms, snarling and brandishing fists and shouting insults and demands that occasionally organize themselves into chants.

  “Send the foreigners home!”

  “England is for the English!”

  “No more for Eléonore!”

  Stupidity. They have no idea what they’re talking about. They only repeat, like parrots, what they have been told by Simon’s followers—or, to be more precise, by Roger Leybourne, Roger de Clifford, and Hamo Lestrange. Savage youths, rapists and murderers. Now they’ve turned their anger on her and on Henry, who divested them of the castles Edward had given to them and sent them back to the Welsh Marches, as far away from their son as possible.

  When they came to her last year, their faces held the same expressions as she is seeing below, their mouths like wounds, their eyes bulging with thunder. Leybourne’s weak chin quivered under the weight of his outrage, but he should have known better than to try to turn Edward against her. Lestrange glared as if he were a bull. She gripped the arms of her throne, fully expecting him to charge. Roger de Clifford, meanwhile, stood in the background picking his teeth and grinning like a hyena, the same as he had done during his hearing on charges of molesting his female tenants—three children born last year to young women in his household. It is no wonder that Eléonore insisted on seizing their castles.

  “I gave them these honors, for they are my friends,” Edward said. “You can’t simply take them away.”

  “They’re a lawless and reckless bunch, and will only cause you harm,” she said.

  “‘What you scorn may be worth much more than you think.’”

  “If you have read de Troyes, then you know that your friends’ behavior hardly conforms to the chivalric code.”

  “My friends are loyal and courageous knights. And they would give their lives for me in battle.”

  “Off the battlefield, they will destroy your life. A man is judged by the company he keeps—and you are no ordinary man.”

  “I would proudly be judged according to my friends.”

  “Roger Leybourne used a sharpened lance in a jousting tournament to exact vengeance on one of our knights. He spilled the defenseless man’s entrails all over the field. Chrétien de Troyes would most certainly not approve.”

  “And he has paid the price. Papa sent him to Outremer to atone for the deed.” Indeed, Eléonore and Henry hoped he would not return.

  “Hamo Lestrange tied up the Lincoln bailiff and whipped him until he fainted.”

  “We caught him beating his horse with a cat-o’-nine-tails.” His eyes sparkle. “He should thank God that Hamo didn’t use it on him.”

  “Your laughter is the reason why I am sending these boys away,” Eléonore said. “The farther they go, the better you will fare.”

  His drooping eyelid twitched as Henry’s
does when he becomes angry. “We are not boys, Mother, but grown men, and hardly in need of your discipline.”

  “There is more to being a man than exacting murderous revenge and self-styled justice.”

  “What do you know of manhood? But I forget that you are more man than woman.”

  She bristled, recalling a time when Henry said the same to her. “Strength of character does not make me a man.”

  “Where, then, is your woman’s heart?”

  “My mother’s heart would protect you from the errant knights whom Simon de Montfort has assigned to you.”

  “Henry of Almain and Roger Leybourne are my closest companions, and I would trust Hamo and Roger de Clifford with my life.” Tears filled his eyes—a grown man, indeed! “You may deprive them of my gifts, but you cannot—will not—deprive them of my love.”

  Instead, Eléonore seems the one so deprived. After leaving her that day, Edward and his friends joined Simon’s army of rebels, opposing her and Henry. What did he hope to gain from this mutiny? Didn’t he realize that Simon craves the throne for himself? When he ran out of money, he discovered who are his true friends—and he came back to Henry. But not to her. He still has not spoken to her.

  Losing Edward must have been a great blow to Simon’s cause—the latest of several setbacks. The pope has nullified the provisions forced upon her and Henry at Oxford, and the French and Castillian courts have sent knights, including the famous Count of St. Pol, to defend their God-given rights as king and queen. The influx of foreign mercenaries, however, is partly to blame for today’s protest. As the Londoners rail against “aliens,” they seem to have forgotten that Simon, too, is a foreigner.

  “Simon de Montfort is coming to London,” their chancellor, Robert Walerand, says. “Stories have spread about all the blood he has spilled. The people are terrified.”

  “And so they chant his name?” Eléonore says.

  “Simon and the Marchers have attacked castles held by your kin, my lady,” Richard says. The Lusignans are gone, but Simon wants revenge against her, as well. Already she has lost family members, incuding Uncle Boniface, who fled to France with a number of her cousins. “The Londoners fear he’ll punish them for supporting the Crown.”

  “Simon has no authority for punishing,” Henry says. “I am still the king.”

  “He sent a letter,” Walerand says. “He demands the city’s aldermen honor their vows to support the Oxford provisions.”

  “They took those vows under duress, virtually at sword point,” Eléonore says. “Yet Simon accuses us of being the oppressors. And now, Richard, I hear that your son Henry has been sent to Boulogne, to capture our John.” Although not an “alien,” John Maunsell fled across the channel, as well, under attack for his service to them and narrowly escaping with his life.

  Richard’s face reddens. “My boy is still young. And he believes Simon’s talk about the people’s right to govern themselves.”

  “It is a very good talk, I hear,” Henry says. “Simon has always possessed a gifted tongue.”

  “Yes, and that is why young Henry will benefit from his time in the French prison,” Eléonore says. Richard’s mouth drops open. “It will do him good to spend some time away from Simon’s influence.”

  “Prison!” Richard’s voice is gruff. “My boy? Oh, this is too much to bear.” He sits down, suddenly looking as old as his fifty-four years. Good: Let him suffer, as Sanchia suffered when he left her to die alone.

  “We must end this battle.” Richard rakes his hands through his thinning hair. “You must negotiate, Henry. Not long ago the barons tried to overthrow our father, and we were almost vanquished by the French. England cannot withstand yet another war with itself.”

  “Negotiate?” Eléonore snorts. “Because Simon marches about with a band of ruffians, smashing up castles? Edmund has secured Dover, and Edward holds Windsor.” She grins every time she thinks of Edward’s ride to the New Temple with his knights, pretending that he had come for the queen’s jewels. Once inside, he smashed and looted the barons’ boxes—Simon’s money and that of his supporters, thousands of marks in coin and treasure.

  “Simon and his men are furious. They blame the queen.”

  Eléonore laughs. She wishes she had suggested the Temple raid, but that act of genius and bravado was all Edward’s. Without his hotheaded friends—including Henry of Almain—to distract him, he is becoming quite the remarkable prince, bold and courageous and smart. He will make a fine king someday. Perhaps someday he will look into the mirror and recognize his mother’s influence.

  “Simon’s talk against ‘aliens’ excites people,” Eléonore says. “Now the common man has someone to despise—besides the Jews.”

  “Do not be so quick to laugh, my dear,” Henry says. “Have you heard their new demands? They want all English castles returned to native Englishmen.” He pulls a parchment from his robe and opens it, squinting to read Simon’s scribbled hand.

  “And what of Leicester? Will Simon abandon it?”

  “All aliens must be expelled from the kingdom forever, except those they permit to remain.”

  “Oh, how absurd!” Eléonore paces the room, glances out the window at the sea of anguish below, at the poor Londoners who think the hypocrite Simon de Montfort will help them. “Henry, we have St. Pol and his men here, and they are exceedingly loyal to us.” St. Pol is a little in love with Eléonore, and would do anything to win her favor. At forty, she has not lost her allure.

  “You favor an attack, I presume.” Henry’s eyes are wary.

  “We silenced Simon before, but he returned. Now we must silence him again—permanently.”

  Richard’s skin pales. He is thinking, she knows, of his son, locked in French prison. A supporter of Simon’s, he will not be released should war break out.

  “Killing Simon would make a martyr of him,” Richard says. “He would become larger in death than he is in life.”

  Henry sighs and rolls the parchment, then tucks it back into his robe. “Richard is right. We cannot kill Simon, and we cannot ignore him.” Noise surges from the crowd as if the people had heard him. “We have no choice but to talk with him.”

  “Talk?” The fling of her hands sends a vase crashing to the floor. “Our sons are under attack, and you want to talk?”

  “For their safety, yes.” Henry walks to the window, looks out at the roiling crowd.

  “For God’s sake, Henry! We’ve had talks and arbitrations and rulings at the highest level, all in our favor. Simon is like a cur with its teeth in our throat, refusing to let go, afraid we might bite him back. I say: bite back!”

  “He is my sister’s husband,” Henry says. “He was once our friend.”

  “He is a traitor and our enemy. He must be stopped.”

  “But he is a friend to King Louis,” Richard says. “If we harm him, we may harm our relations with France.”

  “Always the conciliator, aren’t you, Richard? Especially when your son is in the enemy’s camp.”

  His eyes cloud. “You, with your woman’s heart, should understand my desire to protect him.” That term again! As if women had only hearts, and no minds.

  “When I have two sons under siege at this moment, fighting for their lives and for the future of England? My ‘woman’s heart’ tells me to fight for my sons, with my sons. And that is what I am going to do.” She snatches up the gown she has been embroidering—useless, stupid waste of time, sheer vanity—and glares in defiance at the man she has loved for nearly thirty years. His drooping eyelid twitches. His face has begun, in its old age, to sag. Where is she going? he asks.

  “I am going to join Edward at Windsor. He needs support, Henry, not these endless vacillations. This is his kingdom, too. Come with me!” She holds out her hand to him. He does not take it.

  “I am sending messengers to our sons today, instructing them to surrender their castles.”

  “No, Henry!”

  “This kingdom is sick. Dying, perhaps.” />
  “All because of Simon. Eliminate him, and you have eliminated the disease.”

  “He is like the Medusa,” Richard says. “Cut off his head and two more will appear.”

  “Utter nonsense, and I am sick of it!” She turns to Richard with an exasperated sigh. “You sound like a braying donkey with your predictions of doom. Simon de Montfort is no Medusa, but only an arrogant mortal, as easily killed as any other man.”

  Richard gives Henry a wan smile. “Did I say she had a woman’s heart?”

  “Yes, and I thank God for it,” Eléonore says. Their glances of commiseration tell her that Henry and Richard will not fight, that they are committed to conciliation. “Seeing, as I do now, the weak, trembling vessel that is the heart of man.”

  “You do not have my permission to leave,” Henry growls.

  “I do not recall asking for it,” she says, stepping toward the door.

  “Are you defying my authority?”

  “Apparently so, if you insist on capitulating to the rebels.”

  “I insist that you respect my rule. I am your king, and I command you to remain here.”

  “As your queen, I refuse. Simon wants the kingdom, Henry. He will not stop until he gains it. By God’s head, he will not do so under my rule.”

  “I can stop you, if I so desire.”

  She narrows her eyes at him, ready with a challenge—but then Richard steps in, ready to smooth over their quarrel with his usual flow of words.

  “My lady, you would be ill advised to venture forth in this melee. You will not venture far should you be discovered. You might be captured or even killed.”