The Girl Who Tempted Fortune

by Jane Ann McLachlan

  “He is! He is!”

  “Why, here he is! Here is Prince Louis!” I exclaimed, coming around the side of the bench. He launched himself into my arms. I blushed, glancing over my shoulder at the guard. He was looking back the way we had come, paying no attention to us. I gave the prince a quick hug and let him go. “Again!” he cried.

  “Once more,” I agreed, as willing as he was to prolong our time here. I sat on the bench and closed my eyes. “Find a good hiding place, Prince Louis.” I heard the bushes near the stone path rustle and smiled to myself. “This time do not tell me where you are. I will find you.”

  I looked behind the bench and in the rose bed and behind a tree, each time announcing where I was seeking him and the surprising fact that he was not there. The shrubbery beside the pathway shook with excitement.

  “He is not behind this tree, either,” I said. Hearing no response, I decided to end the game before his interest waned. I walked to the hedge where I had heard him giggling earlier. “Is he in the bushes?” I said loudly. Getting no response, I parted them to look behind, but there was no sign of Louis.

  “Who exactly are you looking for?”

  I jumped and spun around. Prince Robert stood behind me, his eyebrow arched and his mouth quirked in an expression somewhere between amusement and annoyance. I caught my breath, dizzy to find him so near. If I reached out I could touch him. I dropped into a curtsey so quickly I lost my balance and landed on my bottom.

  “Have you had too much ale?”

  “No! No, Your Majesty.” I scrambled up, realized I was standing in his presence and began another curtsey.

  “Be careful,” he advised. “Perhaps you should just stand with your head bowed.” The wry tone left his voice as he added, “Who are you playing with in my royal garden?” He glanced back at the nursery guard standing as rigid as death.

  “Prince Louis,” I whispered, staring at my feet. My face and neck were so hot I knew they were scarlet. What a fool I was making of myself. Then, Oh God, where is Louis?

  “With Louis?”

  I risked a quick glance through my lashes.

  The coldness in Robert’s face had disappeared. “You are here with my son?” He smiled and looked around. “Prince Louis?” he called.

  Receiving no answer, he turned back to me. “Where is he?”

  Even if I had had an answer, I could not have spoken. I looked frantically at the bushes, praying the little prince would magically appear.

  “Where is my son?”

  I opened my mouth but nothing came out. Prince Robert turned impatiently to the guard who stared straight ahead, beads of sweat visible on his forehead.

  “He is hiding, Your Majesty!” I gasped, before Robert could imagine worse. “We were playing hide and find. We play it in the nursery. He... he is hiding,” I finished lamely.

  “But you know where he is?”

  I looked down at my feet.

  “Prince Louis,” Robert called. “Come out!”

  “Where...where is Prince Louis?” I added hopefully. “Where can he be?”

  Prince Robert gave me a shocked look, then turned furiously on the guard. “You let the prince out of your sight?” he roared. The guard shook as though buffeted by a strong wind. Robert whirled on me. “And you—”

  “Here he is,” a little voice said tentatively.

  We froze in a silent tableau, dumbfounded with relief.

  I caught my breath. “Prince Louis, come out now,” I called gently, trying to keep my voice from shaking. “The game has ended.”

  A little sob that broke my heart came from the garden beyond the hedge. “L...Louis is lost.”

  With a roar Robert charged toward the sound. I raced after him. When I reached them Robert had scooped Louis into his arms. He held the little boy tightly, stroking his golden curls as Louis clung to him, weeping against his chest. “Father has found you, Louis,” Robert murmured into his son’s ear. “Father will always find you. I will never leave you lost and frightened.”

  Louis raised his tear-streaked face to his father. “Where is Prince Louis,” he explained sadly.

  Catching sight of me he reached out his arms. “Here he is, Phippa.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  March 7, 1346

  Queen Joanna’s Court, Naples

  “He told them nothing.”

  “He gave them our names! Hugo del Balzo was seen writing down his answers when they questioned him. They got all of our names from him!”

  “They lie.”

  “Of course they are lying,” my son Robert interrupts, frowning at the Count of Terlizzi. “None of us were there. My brother was asleep in his room when Andrew was murdered, that was established months ago, so how could he give up the names of anyone who was there?”

  “He gave them our names to save himself!” Nicholas of Melizzano joins in, his voice a squeak of panic. Heads nod around the table in Joanna’s privy chamber.

  “He did not.” I say again.

  “How could you know that?” the Count of Terlizzi demands, glaring at me.

  I stand up and lean over the table toward him and all my son’s accusers. “Because I was there!”

  The room is silent, every face gaping at me.

  “You were there when he was questioned?” Robert and Joanna ask at the same time.

  “I went, of course I went! Raymond is my son! I wore a servant’s cape and kept to myself. No one recognized me.” Not even Raymond. It might have given him some comfort to see me there, but I could not risk drawing his attention. He was too far gone when I arrived at any rate.

  Robert looks furious.

  “You will not leave Castle Nuovo again until all this has blown over,” Joanna says. “I command it.”

  “Tomorrow they will have a notary read his confession in public, with him there. We will hear then whether he has accused us,” Melizzano says.

  “What does it matter?” Charles of Artois’s face wears an expression of weariness. “Del Balzo, Durazzo, and Taranto, they have already decided who stands in their way. Our names will be read, whether Raymond named us or not.” He glances at me. “I now believe he did not, but it will be the same as if he had.”

  “You will all be safe here,” Joanna says, rising to her feet at the head of the table. “Castle Nuovo will protect you, and Pope Clement VI will send his emissary soon to quell this... this...”

  “Bloodlust?” I suggest. “Insurrection?”

  She looks at me in horror. But it has come to that in her kingdom, outside the very gates of her castle. If we are to survive this, any of us, we must face it for what it is.

  “Unrest,” Joanna says. She turns her back on us stiffly. By the time she has reached the chamber door her guard has it open for her.

  Unrest. I get to my feet slowly. Will this ‘unrest’ send my son to his permanent rest? My eyes fill with tears. I can do nothing for Raymond but pray. Meanwhile, I must consider the others in my family. I take a breath and blink away the momentary weakness. The young queen may be right that we are safe in Castle Nuovo, but we are also helpless here. And I have never been one to sit and wait for rescue.

  When you are most vulnerable, that is when you most need to appear confident. Another saying of my husband’s. A good one. I raise my chin and walk with a show of confidence from the room.

  When dusk falls I receive a message to dine with Queen Joanna. Dressing quickly with the help of a maid—I miss my own maid at my home—I make my way to the small hall. The room is full of faces I know, waiting for the queen to lead us to table. My son Robert is there with his wife, and Sancia with her husband the Count of Marcone, and Charles of Artois and his son Bertrand with their wives. All of Joanna’s supporters and favorites. All but my son Raymond. Where is his wife this evening, I wonder? I hope she has left Naples, gone to one of their country estates where she will be safe, and taken her sons and their wives and children with her.

  But I know they have not gone. Raymond’s wife is a stalwar
t woman, and she cares for my son. She will be thinking: what if they release him and he is brought home, and I am not here to see he is cared for properly? Nevertheless I will send a message tonight begging her to leave, or at least to send her family to safety. I will suggest it to Robert’s wife as well tonight when I have a chance to speak to her alone. There is one who will heed me and think of herself.

  Joanna arrives with Louis beside her. I am startled to see him here, and even more startled to see Joanna lead us into dinner on his arm. I hide my surprise and curtsey as they pass. So she is ready to make her choice public, against my advice. Well, she has learned the art of power since the cradle. This will certainly bind Louis and his army to her. I only fear she is overestimating the love her people bear her. They do love her, but not as much as they love a royal scandal.

  Joanna is radiant. She has been fond of Louis since she was a girl; more than fond, now. Her happiness cuts me deeply. Has she already forgotten the events of this afternoon? She loved Raymond as an uncle, and he loved her as a man loves his rightful monarch. I remind myself how young she is, barely twenty. This is a terrible time to have a young monarch.

  Louis walks Joanna to the head of the table. He waits for her to be seated before gracefully taking the chair beside her. She looks at him as if there is no one else in the room. As if he is her savior. Indeed I hope he will be savior to us all, and quickly, for we are in desperate need of one. I look around for Catherine of Valois. How she will love to see her favorite son’s triumph; but she is not here. We have grown old together, she and I, mostly sparring with one another through the years, but on occasion frosty allies, as we are now.

  Conversation resumes as the rest of us take our places at the table. Robert escorts me on one arm and his wife on the other to our seats. How formal we are, how civilized, while my son lies moaning in agony on a dirty dungeon floor. But I must look calm and untroubled. We must all look like we are the confirmed seat of power in the celebrated Kingdom of Naples.

  The room is hot and smells of sweat. Servants run up and down the table filling wine goblets and ale mugs, too busy answering demands for more drink to bring in the dinner. Men down their ale and swipe at their damp faces as if they are merely wiping their mouths before calling for a refill. Women dab at the sheen on their foreheads with little handkerchiefs and fan themselves, complaining of the heat, although it is barely spring and there are no hot dishes on the table yet, warming the room with their steam. Eyes dart round the room to discover if anyone else feels it, this nervous edginess, this hot coal of anxiety in the chest. But no one’s eyes meet. The talk is too loud, the jokes too quickly repeated, the laughter too brittle. I make trivial conversation, smile, and pretend to be amused like everyone else, with the image of my son’s bleeding body and mutilated face always before me.

  The food arrives and is devoured with the same nervous energy applied to the drink. Joanna and Louis laugh and flirt and clap for the minstrels to sing gay songs and signal for more wine, like everyone else. There is no talk of the war being fought between Louis and his brother Robert, Duke of Taranto, of the angry mobs filling the streets, of today’s attack on the seneschal of the court and by extension, against the crown of Naples.

  I quell my resentment. Joanna learned how to reign from me as well as from her grandparents, King Robert and Queen Sancia. I should be pleased to see her apply her lessons so well. When dinner is over everyone has been cheered and fortified. We look at one another a little blurrily, united in our bold defiance of the threat that lies over every head in this room.

  Joanna and Louis leave the table early. Louis must get back to his hired troops. The food and silver plates will be cleared away at once; no one is served after the queen leaves. But Joanna orders the servants to continue pouring wine and ale until dawn, to a dutiful cheer from the company. Ah, how well we all play our part.

  The noblewomen—wives and ladies-in-waiting—leave as well, and I with them. On the way out I speak quietly to Robert’s wife, who says she will leave Naples tomorrow, and to Sancia and her husband, who will not.

  “You have been named a conspirator in Prince Andrew’s murder,” I tell my granddaughter harshly.

  “I will be safe beside Queen Joanna.”

  It is what I am counting on as well, but these are uncertain times. Who knows where safety lies? I accept her decision and ask her husband, the count, to send a message to Raymond’s wife, imploring her to take her family away from Naples. He promises to do so.

  Sancia and I walk to the bedchambers assigned to the ladies of Joanna’s court, but before we reach ours Robert meets us. I take one look at his face and tell Sancia to go ahead.

  “What is it? Father, what has happened?” Sancia asks.

  “Council business,” I tell her before he can answer. “Go to bed, child, it need not concern you.”

  “I have been accused as well. My name has been linked with the estrangement between the queen and Prince Andrew.” She shivers. “However bad the news may be, I would rather know.”

  Robert kisses his daughter’s forehead. “Nothing has happened that I know of, darling. Go to bed. My grandson needs his sleep.” He pats her swelling womb affectionately.

  When she still balks he adds, “As soon as I have news of your uncle, I promise to tell you.”

  “The queen is leaving us,” he tells me quietly when we are alone. “She is going to Castle dell’Ovo.”

  “Tonight?”

  “At once. Louis is waiting with his men to escort her there. She told me of her decision when we left the dining hall.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “In her bedchamber. Marguerite is with her.”

  Marguerite of Taranto. The Duke of Taranto’s sister, and Louis’ as well. Why Marguerite? Sancia is the first of Joanna’s ladies-in-waiting, she has been Joanna’s closest friend since they were children.

  “Mother—”

  “I am going,” I tell him, already hurrying toward Joanna’s rooms.

  Joanna looks up as her guard admits me. “Philippa,” she says, as though she is glad to see me. I note the strain on her face beneath her smile.

  I curtsey stiffly. “I hear you are leaving us, Your Majesty.”

  “I am going to Castle dell’Ovo to be with Charles Martel.”

  “We need you here, Your Majesty,” I murmur, still sunk in my curtsey, my head bowed.

  “My son needs me now. You may get up,” she adds.

  “How will we make any decisions with you gone from your court?” I rise from my curtsey because my legs are shaking treacherously, but I keep my head bowed to mitigate the reprimand behind my words. She knows her place is here during this crisis, and she knows how running to Castle dell’Ovo will look.

  Castle dell’Ovo is built on land jutting out into the sea, a short narrow causeway joining it to Naples. It is impregnable, the refuge of the Angevins in times of greatest danger. She will appear to be fleeing in fear, perhaps even to be deserting her office. She will also appear to be deserting us, leaving us to our fate. Washing her hands of us, as Pilate did to Our Lord. I raise my eyes—is this what she intends?—but she looks away before I can read her.

  “I have placed Robert in charge, as grand seneschal of my kingdom. And Castle dell’Ovo is not far.”

  It is a short ride away when the city is safe to travel through. I do not point out that she now needs Louis and his guards to accompany her there.

  “It is not safe for my son to leave this castle to consult you.”

  She flushes at the oblique reminder of my Raymond’s ordeal. “I have given Robert complete authority to act on my behalf,” she says.

  “Your Majesty—” my voice trembles, taking on a pleading tone she has never heard from me.

  “Leave us a moment, Marguerite,” she interrupts.

  “Philippa,” she says, clasping my shoulders when we are alone. “You know I would not leave you if I thought you were in danger. You know I love you as my—”

&nb
sp; “Then do not leave us!” I cry, desperate enough to beg. Robert of Taranto and Charles of Durazzo will not dare attack the castle with their rightful monarch inside. I want to shake her for her cowardice, I cannot understand it. She has never lacked courage before.

  “I must! Louis has heard of a plot to take Charles Martel. The Hungarians are planning to take my son from me!”

  “Pope Clement would never—” It is true he has requested that Charles Martel be brought to him in Avignon until all this is settled. But the Pope does not plot, he commands. At the back of my mind I am thinking, Louis told her this?

  “Pope Clement VI has already shown he can be swayed by Elizabeth of Hungary’s gold,” Joanna says bitterly. “And my son’s nurse...”

  Charles Martel is in the care of Prince Andrew’s old nurse, Isabelle the Hungarian, who would defend him with her life against any other enemy. But she cannot be trusted to resist a plot to unite him with his Hungarian relatives. She might even be part of it.

  But would they do this? The unsubtle Hungarians? They bribe, they threaten, they attack, they are loud and cruel and violent, but they are not stealthy. And all the while I am still thinking, She is leaving us because Louis told her this?

  “You are more dear to me than any person alive.” Joanna’s blue eyes fill with tears. “Except my son. You would not abandon your son, Philippa! I know you would not allow a child of yours to be taken from you in his infancy, to be raised by others! And your enemies at that! I must go to him. You have to understand!” She holds my forearms, shaking them in her extremity.

  My mouth opens but I cannot speak. What can I say? What can I possibly say?

  “Take Sancia with you,” I beg her.

  She turns her face aside, unable to look at me. “I cannot. Louis says it must be Marguerite.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Winter, 1299

  Court of King Charles II, Naples

  I will be turned out of the castle in disgrace. If I am not hanged.