“I am aware of the risks.” She turns pleading eyes to Henry. “Relent, I beg you. Do not force me to this.”
“What will you do if you cannot reach Edward?”
“I shall return here. But I must try, Henry. As father to our sons, surely you must see that.”
“You will not be allowed back.”
“What do you mean?”
“If you leave against my wishes, I shall not allow you to return.”
Her steps clip briskly on the floor. She calls to Agnes, instructs her to pack their belongings and to call for her uncle Peter’s protégé Ebulo di Montibus. She needs a boat, she tells him. She needs a crew and additional knights, for protection. They will slip out a back door and into the boat, then row upstream to Windsor in hopes of reaching her son before Henry’s messengers do.
One hour later they are on the Thames, slipping silently behind the backs of the crowd beating at the Tower walls with clubs and irons and trying to set fire to it, as though the castle were under siege, as though Henry were not at this moment conceding to all their demands. She would never have believed it of him—but Richard has always been a coward, too timid to fight even in Outremer, a flaw he hides under conciliatory words like hands trying to smooth a puckered garment’s wrinkles. He talked those French knights out of the Saracens’ grip and made himself a hero without shedding a drop of blood. His aversion to battle is why he urges Henry to negotiate with the rebels. Not that he is incapable of passion; she knows, from Sanchia, that he reserves his attacks for those weaker than he.
He tried to diminish her, with his talk of a “woman’s heart.” But she has never considered herself weaker or less capable than men—and why should she, given the examples of manhood around her? Sanchia was worth one thousand Richards of Cornwall, yet he left her to die bereft of love or comfort. He never even mourned her death; according to rumor, he began giving away her belongings before she died. And then he did not attend her funeral service at Hailes Abbey. Therein lies weakness. And he is the one to whom Henry listens.
Edward, on the other hand, is strong. Now that she and Henry have rid him of the Marchers, he has ceased his carousing and jousting and has turned, at last, to the task of defending the kingdom. He possesses none of Henry’s impulsivity, none of his petulance—but all of his determination and will, as well as the self-confidence that Eléonore has instilled. If she were a man, she would be Edward. Does that mean that she has the heart of a man? It draws her to her son now, to stand beside him and fight—whether he would want her with him or not.
Their little boat slices the water without a sound as they slide past the Londoners whose shouts bounce off the castle walls and box Eléonore’s ears.
“Send your Provençal trollop home!” a man shouts, then turns and sees the boat. “The Queen!” he screams. “She is trying to escape!” The hatred in his eyes—why? A flash of his hand and then she is struck, the stone smashed into her forehead.
Her hand flies up to touch the wound; blood covers her fingers and runs into her left eye. “Oh!” she says faintly as another stone flies past her head. Ebulo lunges for her, his mouth open as if to shout, then falls, struck. The protesters have abandoned the castle and now face the river, hurling insults as well as rocks, sticks, and mud. The captain cries a command to pull away from the shore and the ship moves into the center of the stream, out of range of the objects hurtling toward them.
But they will not avoid the onslaught once they reach London Bridge, where the crowd waits for the boat to pass under. A boy of no more than four years, held aloft by his father, hefts a stone the size of a dinner plate. Four women wearing prostitutes’ hoods shake their fists. Henry’s red-haired whore is among them, packing a ball of mud and narrowing her eyes at Eléonore.
“Sorceress!” she screams. “You have bewitched our good King Henry.”
“Down with foreigners,” others shout. “Aliens out of England. Save England for the English!”
Eléonore looks about for shelter—a blanket or a mantle, at least, with which to cover her head. Hamo Lestrange sneers from the bridge. He holds a boulder, large enough to sink a great hole in her boat, poised above the spot where they will soon pass.
“Guard the queen!” another knight cries. “Please, my lady, if you will lie down, we will cover you and prevent more harm to you.”
“Stop,” she says. “Turn the boat around.”
“I beg your pardon, my lady? Do you wish to return to the Tower?”
She recalls Henry’s warning, that she would not be allowed back. Send a messenger, she says. Tell Henry we are in danger and must return.
Ebulo, his head bandaged, insists on going. Eléonore balks. He will be discovered and killed. But he knows a hidden path, he says, and can swim to shore undetected. In a moment he is gone and, as he promised, the crowd does not notice the tiny ripple he makes, or his stealthy reemergence in the brush.
Waiting, Eléonore sits in the boat in the middle of the river and ponders the angry faces. The hatred in their eyes. The attacks, the cries against her, accusing her of seducing the king with her “woman’s tricks,” whatever those are. Are these the people whose kingdom she has worked so diligently to increase?
Ebulo pops up from the water and pulls himself into the boat. His bandage is brown from the dirty water, and red with his blood.
“The king,” he gasps, “said, ‘no.’”
No? Eléonore frowns.
“You may not return to the Tower. He has sealed off the entrances to you.”
She presses her lips together, holding in her cry of dismay. Would he leave her to die, then, at the hands of this mob? But, no. Henry loves her. He is in a fit of temper, that is all.
“We will wait,” she says, “and appeal to him again.”
The shouting subsides. The crowd on the bridge parts. A man in a brown tunic waves red-sleeved arms. “My lady, you may come to shore,” he calls. “I guarantee your safety.”
She recognizes Thomas FitzThomas, the newly elected mayor of London, whom she and Henry fêted only weeks ago.
Knights amass on the bank, forming a fence with their armor beyond which the citizens cannot pass. The anchor hoisted, the boat floats to the bank. Ebulo lifts her out of the vessel and carries her across the mud to the grassy hillock where the rosy-cheeked mayor stands wringing his hands.
“I deeply apologize,” he says. “This is no way to treat our queen.”
He has brought a carriage for her. She folds herself inside. He follows, to her dismay, for she would not be seen trembling with fear.
“I would offer you sanctity in my home, except that it is too modest for your comfort. I have but four rooms and five children.”
Eléonore closes her eyes, hiding her tears. Is this what she is reduced to—begging for lodging in the home of a town dweller? Outside, more shouts arise. There is a banging on the carriage door, then a scream. Eléonore pulls aside the curtain to see Ebulo running his sword through a man’s body. This, she thinks, is the only language these people understand.
Marguerite
The Same Tune
Provence, 1265
Forty-four years old
HERE’S WHAT DEATH DOES: it mortifies us. Marguerite can barely look at her mother’s red-rimmed eyes, her blue and gasping mouth, her flesh sagging so heavily that it seems it might slide off her face. Beatrice of Savoy, the Countess of Provence, was celebrated for her elegance and beauty. She would not choose to be seen like this, not even by her daughters.
But here she lies with her final breath in her teeth and life seeping from her edges, too weak to sit but not too feeble to grip Marguerite’s hand as if she feared she might fall. Beside her, Beatrice weeps—remorseful, Marguerite imagines, for all the pain she and Charles have caused—while Eléonore fusses, fluffing pillows, mopping Mama’s sweating brow, ordering fresh flowers to replace the ones wilting on the bedside stand. Marguerite can only hold her mother’s hand and breathe the stagnant air through parted lips, and force herself to
return her mother’s desperate gaze with a comforting smile that, she hopes, holds none of the disgust that she is feeling.
Mama’s lively dark eyes are dimmed. Death’s slow strangle has reduced her fire to a smolder. Marguerite remembers her laugh—as hearty as a man’s—and the sight of her striding, her skirts lifted, across the hills in Provence with her hawk on her arm, her falconer trotting to keep pace with her. She closes her eyes.
Breathe in—rattle, cough—breathe out. “My boys.” Her endearment for them when they were children. “But where is Sanchia?” A long rattle in her chest, a fit of coughing. Then, a long exhale. “Oh, yes. I shall see her soon.”
“Don’t give up, Mama,” Marguerite urges. She feels limp, as if her spine were dissolving. She sits on the bed, still holding her mother’s hand.
“You give up,” Mama says. “Cease this struggle. Beatrice is your sister.”
Marguerite closes her eyes again. She should have known that Mama would do this. She is relentless about anything that she wants.
“This doesn’t seem like the time—” Eléonore begins.
“This is the only time!” Mama snaps, then begins to cough again. The healer rushes in, his thin hair frowsing.
“I told you not to excite her, my ladies.”
“They are not exciting me,” Mama barks. “They are boring me to death.” He ducks out again.
“You have always loved excitement,” Eléonore says. It is true. When they were girls, it was Mama who planned the hunt and who led the chase—tearing after the hounds, jumping over fallen trees and splashing through streams, shouting all the while. She married her daughters to the richest, most powerful men she could find, then spent her life traveling from court to court to challenge and encourage her daughters to greater feats. It was she who stirred the people of Marseille to rebel against Charles’s oppression, and she who continued to fight for her rights in Provence until age sapped her of strength and of health.
“It is not worth the struggle, Margi,” she says. “You are sisters.”
Marguerite will not argue with a dying woman. But Mama will not let the matter go. “You must join together,” she says. “You must help one another. As men do. Think what you might have done for Sanchia. Poor Sanchia.”
Eléonore colors and nibbles at her lower lip. She would say that she was locked in the Tower of London and could not go to Sanchia. She would say that Richard didn’t tell her that her sister was dying. Marguerite has her own excuses: grief over her son’s death; a kingdom to govern now that Louis has lost interest in this world; her fight, by Eléonore’s side, for the Crown of England; Charles’s attempts to turn her son Philip, now heir to the throne, against her.
Beatrice, on the other hand, is all justification and no remorse. “I am sure I had no part in Sanchia’s death,” she says. “I have been quashing a rebellion in Marseille, as you should know. And”—a fleeting smile—“preparing for Sicily.”
“Sicily?” Eléonore says.
“Charles has been offered the Crown,” Beatrice says.
“And you are going to take it? After all my years of work on Edmund’s behalf?”
Beatrice lifts her chin. “Edmund’s name has been withdrawn. The pope grew tired of waiting for the funds you promised. We, on the other hand, are prepared to send money and troops. Should we forgo the opportunity because you squandered it?”
Marguerite’s laugh is raucous, like the squawk of a crow.
“Squandered?” Eléonore cries. “How dare you? Is it our fault that we have a civil war on our hands?”
“If your husband cannot control his own kingdom, how does he expect to subdue Sicily? Charles has an excellent record in this regard.”
“Yes, subduing is Charles’s specialty,” Marguerite says. “He imposed taxes on the people of Marseille, then used rats to torture those who didn’t pay.”
“At least we have ended the troubles in Provence.”
“At what price? You and Charles have beaten the people down, and now you are reviled.”
Beatrice shrugs. “If popularity were our aim, we would have become minstrels.”
“What is your aim?” Eléonore asks.
“Power. The same as yours.”
“My aim is to help my family, including my sisters,” Eléonore says.
“Yes, you have been such a great help to me,” Beatrice says with a snort. “And to Sanchia, too. She died alone, but I’m sure her heart was warmed by your love and concern.”
“You, on the other hand, will not suffer that fate,” Marguerite retorts. “No one is sending love your way.” She glances at her mother, forgotten now that she has stopped gripping Marguerite’s hand. Mama stares at the ceiling as if she were listening to music far away. Marguerite wants to shake her, to say, See, Mama? Beatrice is the one you need to correct, not me.
But it would do no good, for Mama is beyond seeing and beyond correcting. Her eyes do not blink. Her breath has stopped. Always agitated by her daughters’ disputes, she apparently has decided to leave them behind, once and for all.
AT THE FUNERAL mass in the Hautecombe Abbey, the sisters do not speak, not to one another and not to the mourners who fill the cathedral and spill onto the lawn. They have not spoken to one another in days, their tongues bound with the mortification of having bickered over their mother’s deathbed. Forgive us, Marguerite prays as Philip, Charles, St. Pol, and a number of other young knights lower Mama’s coffin into its tomb close by where Uncle William lies. Peace was all their mother asked for in the end, yet they could not give it to her for even five minutes.
It is all Beatrice’s fault. She announced Charles’s intentions for Sicily at the worst possible time, as Mama lay dying—and in the presence of Eléonore, whom she knew would be distraught. Of course, she is never happy unless she commands all the attention. Look at her now, sobbing as though Mama’s death were the end of her world, as though she hadn’t made their mother’s final years miserable by forcing her to leave Provence.
Even Charles looks uncomfortable, squeezing his hands into fists as he holds Beatrice up—wishing he could stuff one of those fists into her wailing mouth, Marguerite supposes. But no, he doesn’t hit Beatrice. She doesn’t duck her head when he comes near, or soften her voice to a tremble, as Sanchia did with Richard. A meek and submissive wife would never satisfy him, for he enjoys the battle even more than the victory. Perhaps that is why he continues to sneer at Marguerite even after he has won the fight for Provence (or so he thinks). Perhaps that is why he has enlisted her son against her, even when she has, for the time being, laid down her arms.
Cease this struggle. Mama’s admonition still burns her ears, although Marguerite knows she has no reason for shame. She is doing what she must. With her son Louis dead and her husband Louis always ill, Philip may find himself King of France very soon—and Marguerite may find herself without a home or an adequate income.
Louis has left her almost nothing in his will. “What need will you have for worldly goods in the nunnery?” he said. It is the nunnery for which she has no need. A life in the cloister is his desire, not hers. But she cannot say this to Louis, or, if she did, he would not comprehend. He cannot imagine that anyone would shun a life of complete devotion to God. Marguerite prefers to honor him in the world which he so gloriously made. Hers will be a bleak existence when Louis dies, unless she can claim her portion of Provence—which she fully intends to do.
“I thought I agreed with Mama, there at her bedside,” Eléonore says on the carriage ride to Paris—a rare and delicious occasion, just the two of them in complete privacy. “I saw your jaw clench when she admonished you to abandon the fight for Provence. I thought, we are sisters. We ought to pull together, not apart. Women should do this generally.”
Marguerite laughs. “Blanche de Castille would agree, don’t you think?”
“But she provides a perfect example. How much better for France—and for you both—if she had taught you instead of fighting you. You have only n
ow regained the strength and confidence you possessed at thirteen—which you lost because of her.”
“And now you want me to cuddle with Cleopatra?”
Eléonore gives her a dark look. “I thought so, yes. Until she revealed Charles’s intention to take Sicily for himself. Henry and I had planned to travel to Rome and petition the new pope in person. But the barons’ revolt has lasted longer than we thought.”
“Popes keep dying,” Marguerite says. “Six in the last fifteen years. Each time, we are cast into uncertainty.” To each new pope she sends a request for her share of Provence. She has spent most of her life since Papa’s death waiting, it seems, for men to decide her fate.
“Pope Clement has barely had time to warm his seat. How has he already withdrawn Edmund’s name from Sicily and named Charles in his place?”
“Charles and Beatrice attended his confirmation ceremony. They must have been granted an audience.” Having exiled Mama to Paris, then killed all the rebels in Marseille, Charles and Beatrice had ample time to travel to Rome and more time in which to linger there. Time is a luxury which neither Eléonore nor Marguerite has enjoyed lately.
“I feel as though I’d been stabbed in the heart.” A sob catches in Eléonore’s throat. She dabs her tears with a lace handkerchief. “I worked for years to obtain Sicily for Edmund. I’ve coaxed and wheedled and placated every lord and earl and clergyman in England. We were so close to the prize. So close. Now my boy will have only Lancaster when Henry dies, not nearly enough for his own sons. Beatrice be damned, and her ambitions, too!”
“One word from Charles and she leaps to his side, no matter how heinous his crimes. She is not one of us, Elli.”
“I suppose not,” Eléonore says. She looks out the window, watches her dreams of a Sicilian kingdom slide past. “Margi,” she says, “do you think he beats her?”
“I think she beats him.”
Later, the carriage driver will tell how the sisters mourned their mother, their shrieks and wails ringing so volubly from within that he almost thought it was laughter he heard.
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