Four Sisters, All Queens (67 page)

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 now 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 How has he already withdrawn Edmund’s name from Sicily and named Charles in his place?”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.

H
ENRY OF
A
LMAIN
has grown. How long has it been since Marguerite saw him last? Richard and Sanchia brought him to the first Christmas feast eleven years ago. He was a skinny youth with a reckless edge, a swagger belied by the roses in his cheeks. Now he is a man of thirty with broad shoulders and a somber mouth who stands with his legs planted just so, at ease in his body. As much as he has changed, no one needs to announce him to Marguerite. He is the very image of his father at his age, except that he wears a scrap of a beard and his sand-colored hair falls to his shoulders.

He bows deeply to her and Eléonore upon entering the great hall. The pope’s legate, Guy, accompanies him, wearing a brown tunic and broad-brimmed hat that captures Eléonore’s eye.

“We have come from England. The situation is very bad,” the legate says. “King Henry and the Prince Edward are prisoners, captured in battle against the rebels at Lewes. The Earl of Leicester has placed himself in Westminster Palace and called the Parliament into session. I hear that he sits on the throne.”

“On the throne!” Louis’s voice rings through the palace as he strides into the hall. “On the seat where generations of God’s anointed have reigned? Simon de Montfort has gone too far.”

“His Grace Pope Clement agrees with you,” Guy says as, kneeling, he kisses Louis’s ring.

“Simon has presumed upon the king’s position.”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

“This is mutiny! And blasphemy.”

“Yes.”

“Good. Then Pope Clement will censure him?”

“He has issued a writ of excommunication.”

“A wise decision. But—you have not announced it in England?”

The legate pauses. He lowers his eyes. “England is in a shambles. I lifted my voice, but it was not heeded. And now there are other crimes. More serious—”

“My Henry?” Eléonore presses her hand to her chest. Richard’s son bows to her.

“Safe, my lady,” he says.

“Edward?”

“Safe, thank God.”

Eléonore narrows her eyes. “Yet you are Simon’s man now.”

“I am his hostage.” His glance, Marguerite notices, brushes her sister’s cheek. Eléonore, the queen of captivation, even at forty. “Had you not heard? I, too, was captured at Lewes—fighting alongside Edward.” Richard’s pleas to King Louis, accompanied by the clink of coins, resulted in his son’s release from prison in France.

“The prince has come to present the Earl Simon’s terms,” the legate says.

“I will not negotiate with Simon de Montfort,” Eléonore says. “I am Queen of England. He is barely an earl, and a traitorous one.”

“He holds the king and Prince Edward hostage,” Henry says.

“I have an army of men from Flanders, Poitiers, Ireland, and France preparing to sail for England,” Eléonore says. “If Simon desires a fight, we will give him one.”

“The king begs you to refrain.” Guy hands Eléonore a letter. She reads it quickly, then passes it to Marguerite.

“By God’s head, we will rescue them,” she says as Marguerite reads.
They will kill us if you send foreign troops
. “Simon will not intimidate me.”

“I have a plan.” Henry’s expression is eager. “I think we can free Edward without a fight—and he can liberate the king.”

“Simon de Montfort is your friend,” Eléonore says. “Why would I listen to you?”

“He
was
my friend,” Henry of Almain says. “But Uncle Henry and Edward are family. As are you, my aunt.” He blushes sweetly. Eléonore’s mouth twitches upward. How long has it been since a
man looked at Marguerite with desire? But she has turned gray and grown to plumpness, an old woman. Unable to watch their tête-à-tête any longer, she slips out to her chambers, needing rest.

On the way, she mutters to herself, a habit of late. Now that she finally has a voice, she doesn’t seem to be able to stop using it. “Envy of a young man’s attention, at your age? Of what use is beauty to a woman, anyway?” Her good looks only incited jealousy from Blanche de Castille, causing Marguerite much misery. Sanchia’s perfection gained her a husband more than twenty years her senior who quickly grew bored with her. Eléonore’s charms have won her many admirers, but where are her supporters now? Scurried like vermin to their dark corners, too afraid of Simon de Montfort to defend her against stones, mud, or charges of adultery.

Their hostility is misplaced. Eléonore brought her relations to England, yes, as any queen consort from another land would do. A woman, having so little power on her own, must rely on the support of powerful men. Uncle Boniface, Pierre d’Aigueblanche, and Uncle Peter are not why England suffers. The barons of England and Wales are to blame—their ruthless squeezing of money and work from their tenants and serfs. They point the finger at Eléonore because she is a woman, an easy target made more contemptible, perhaps, because of her beauty.

You are sisters. You must help one another.
In this struggle to navigate a world made by men, for men, are not all women sisters? But they do not all help one another. Women—Blanche and Beatrice—have presented the greatest obstacles to Marguerite’s success. And now, she is doing the same to Beatrice, but that cannot be helped. Beatrice has brought her troubles on herself.

And it is Beatrice who waits in her room, who slumps for one unguarded moment in Marguerite’s purple chair, looking as if she might cry. When she sees her sister enter, she stands and smiles, but melancholy clouds her eyes.

“Sister,” she says. “I know you said once that we are not sisters, but we are.”

“In name. Not in spirit.”

“I hope that’s not true!” She takes a deep breath. “Margi, I need your help.”

Marguerite laughs. “What, a jester now, too? Good, then—I have been craving amusement.” She steps to her chair, edging Beatrice aside, and seats herself with slow regality, her maids spreading her gown and mantles about her. She gestures to a lower chair and Beatrice sits with her hands in her lap.

“Charles needs troops to fight with us in Sicily. Louis has given his assent—”

“Quelle surprise!”
Marguerite gives an indelicate snort.

“But only with your approval.” Her voice softens. “I did not realize that you had attained such power.”

“Only because Louis has ceased to pay attention. He would rather persecute blasphemers than count his coins, so I administer the treasury. I hold the key in a very tight fist.”

“We hope you will loosen it for us. For me.”

“What, I wonder, inspires this hope?”

“Your empathetic heart.”

“Your sarcasm is touching. As always.”

“Surely you can understand my desire to be a queen. It is a prize that all my sisters have gained, except for me.”

“I never wanted to be a queen. I wanted to be Countess of Provence.”

“I would trade places with you, if I could.”

Marguerite scrutinizes her sister for signs of disingenuousness, sees a face as open as a book. “Perhaps you can.”

She sighs. “That would require Charles’s cooperation. And I do not think he would loosen his hold on even a single Provençal castle.”

“Then I will not loosen my hold on the treasury key. Eléonore is more in need of France’s help, at any rate.”

“You would waste your men and money on that futile cause? Henry has lost the kingdom. Simon de Montfort has won the battle and made himself king. And he has promised aid to Charles.”

“Has Charles pledged fealty to Simon? My God, Beatrice! Have you no sense of loyalty?”

“I spoke against it, but he wouldn’t listen. Charles and Simon are longtime friends.” Of course. Simon spent many months in the French court, following Louis around as if he were a toddler who lives only for his papa’s pat on the head. Although he enjoyed the attention, Louis was often occupied with his prayers and self-immolations, leaving Simon to exercise his charms on others in the court. Marguerite was not deceived despite his ardent flatteries. Charles, however, succumbed instantly to his charm.

“If Simon is such a close ally, let him supply your troops.”

“You know he cannot. He has given money, but he needs all his men at present.”

“To overthrow our sister.”

Beatrice colors. “Yes.”

Marguerite’s raucous laugh—the laugh of an old woman, ha!—grows even louder at the sight of her sister’s worried frown. “I might coax troops from my cousin Alfonso of Castille for you, in exchange for my fourth of Provence. Including Tarascon.”

“You know I cannot promise that.”

“Then why are you wasting my time?” She leaps up from her chair. Beatrice cringes as if afraid she might attack. “You dare to come to me for help, yet you can offer nothing in return.”

“When Charles and I are King and Queen of Sicily, we will be valuable allies.”

She laughs again. “You have shown already how valuable you are to me.” She turns toward her bed. “Leave me. I need to rest.”

“Sister, please! Do not be so cold. I would help you if I could.” Beatrice’s voice snags.