Four Sisters, All Queens (16 page)

“Siblings fight.” Eléonore shrugs. “What can one do about that?”

“You used to quarrel quite a bit with your sisters, as I recall. Especially Margi. You, of all people, ought to know how to smooth the ruffled feathers of rivalry.”

Across the room, Richard has seen her looking at him. Holding his gaze with her own, she gestures for Margaret Biset, her handmaid, and gives her instructions. Then, with a lift of her skirts, she turns to leave the great hall.

“Where are you going, child?”

“To my chambers. I have summoned Richard of Cornwall, and now he must come to me. Such is the power of a queen.” She lowers her voice. “If he’s as confident as you say, then he’ll have many opinions regarding today’s meeting. And I shall listen to them all, with utter delight.”

Marguerite

A Woman’s Heart

Pontoise, 1237

Sixteen years old

T
HEY MEET BEHIND
hedges, in dark passageways, underground in the cellar where the royal wine is stored—but eyes—
her
eyes—are always there, watching. They ride into the woods but the groomsman comes along:
The White Queen would have my head if anything happened to Your Majesties
. They try the obvious meeting place—Marguerite’s chambers, or Louis’s—but Blanche appears within minutes, a veritable hound on her son’s trail. Louis has a visitor, or an urgent matter to address; or a meeting scheduled at this very moment—did he forget? Marguerite, never summoned, never acknowledged, might as well be invisible except for Blanche’s look of triumph as she pulls the blushing Louis from her arms.

“Ruling a kingdom is a demanding task,” the queen mother says. “We have no time for frivolous pursuits.”

“Why can’t you simply tell her ‘no’?” Marguerite pleads. At first, Louis asked for patience, offered promises. Now, in their second year of marriage, he clenches his jaw and reminds her that he is in charge of an entire kingdom.
Who is in charge?
she wants to ask.

“Your son appeared to me in a dream,” she whispers to Louis
one night, just before he drifts off to sleep. “He is waiting to come into the world.”

This tale appeals to his sense of the mystical. He sits up in bed: “By God, he will not have to wait long.” He takes her into his arms and kisses her fervently—but, once again, cannot finish what he has begun—cannot, really, even begin. “The day’s events have used my strength,” he says.

“Then we must meet during the day.”

“My mother will never allow it. She says the day is for duty and the night, for pleasure.”

“Producing heirs isn’t one of our duties?” Ah, she has him there.

“But how? Servants and courtiers are everywhere. Someone would tell Mama.”

“We need secret signs, you and I,”
she sings.
“Boldness fails, so let cunning try!”

She hovers like the hawk, biding her time. A trouvére comes forth with a new song for the White Queen. Marguerite slips out of her throne, unnoticed by the enraptured Blanche. She hands a servant a note for Louis, then steps into the garden. When he appears, they slip behind a row of tall hedges. He draws her close—
my beautiful wife
—and kisses her as though his life depended on her breath. He tastes of strawberries, his favorite fruit. His hands move like slow riders over her body’s terrain. The two of them fall, sighing, into the fragrant grass, slide tunics up and leggings down. His skin smells of cinnamon and camphor; his hipbones make a hollow into which he pulls her, his breath panting and hot on her throat.

“He stepped out here a few moments ago.” His mother’s voice quivers like a drawn blade, cutting between them.

“I saw no one, my lady,” a man answers. “His Grace must have continued into the bathing rooms.”

“I am not going to follow him in there, am I? Why don’t you go and see if the king is bathing? Report to me in my chambers if you do not find him, or send him to me if you do.”

The voices fade. Marguerite lifts her tunic again. “Hurry.”

But Louis cannot. “
Merde
. My mother—”

She makes herself kiss him. “Don’t worry. We have all our lives to make an heir.”

“We will not have to wait that long.” He pulls her close. His heart knocks against her chest. Soon they stand and dress, she adjusting his mantle, he tying her sleeves.

“We will have many children, I promise,” he whispers. Something crunches under her foot. She has stepped into a bed of irises: the flower of France. She reaches down and tries to stand them up, but their stalks are broken, their petals crushed.

A
ND THEN THEY
are on the move again, headed for Pontoise, north of the city, favored by the Emperor Baldwin of Constantinople, for its baths on the shore of the river Oise. The emperor will arrive today with an urgent petition, but has kept its subject a secret. “Money, most likely. I doubt you’ll be needed,” Blanche says to Marguerite. “Why don’t you play with Isabelle today?”

But Isabelle is not feeling well, so Marguerite sends her to bed and instead is directing the chamberlains and chambermaids preparing her rooms—hanging clothes, setting up her bed, arranging her favorite chair by a sunny window—when she hears a knocking. She turns and opens a door—and sees Louis, beckoning her into a stairwell.

His kiss dizzies her; his arm around her waist steadies her. With his free hand he unlaces her tunic and slips his hands inside to caress her.

“My room is directly above,” he whispers. “My queen, we have found our place.”

Desire surges through her, pumping like blood—but a knock interrupts, from the door at the top of the stair. Louis’s chamberlain opens it: “The queen approaches,” he rasps. Louis runs up the steps. Tugging at her gown, she wonders:
Who
is Louis’s queen?

She throws open the door to her chambers, stomps inside. She calls her ladies’ names—Gisele, Bernadette, Amelie—her voice
ringing like a trumpet’s call. The women buzz around her, pulling off her tunic and hose, sliding her red gown over her head, clasping a mantle of vair about her throat, folding her hair into a crespine of gold, pinning on her crown. In the mirror, she sees a queen. Now it is time to behave like one. And then she is striding into the great hall, where a small, slight young man stretches open hands toward Louis and Blanche.

“Without France’s help, cousin, these relics may be lost forever,” he says. His pointed little beard lends poignancy to his chin—indeed, gives him a chin at all. He reminds Marguerite of a rat. A royal rat, in purple and gold with a red mantle, and a crown whose excess of jewels nearly obscure the gold. The man stops speaking as she walks to the dais and sits on her throne, at Louis’s left-hand side—Blanche is on the right. A smiling Louis introduces her to Baldwin, the Emperor of Constantinople.

“What a surprise to see you here, daughter,” Blanche says. Her voice sounds pinched, as if she were holding her nose. “Did you grow tired of playing with Isabelle?”

“I have just returned from comforting the poor child. She has not seen her mother in several days, and is sick with longing. You will find her in her bed, crying for you.”

All eyes turn to Blanche, whose blush bleeds from the edges of her white mask. As she must know, Isabelle has taken to her bed with stomach pains. Several days earlier the girl asked Blanche for alms to give to the poor, but Blanche did not respond. Now the girl refuses to eat until her mother sends money.

“I shall go to her in time,” Blanche says.

“She is quite ill. She says that only you can cure her,” Marguerite says.

“Please, Mother, do not feel pressed to remain with us,” Louis says.

“And insult our visitor?” She smiles at the emperor, who lowers his eyes like a bashful lover. “I want to hear his petition.”

“Dear Mother, your devotion to our kingdom is impressive,” Louis says. “Yet you have taught us well. We can surely judge this matter.”

“Yes, Mother, I am here to advise the king.” Marguerite reaches over to give Louis’s hand an affectionate squeeze.

Overruled, Blanche stands. Her cold glance lifts the hair on Marguerite’s arms. The emperor bows as she steps off the platform with a swish of her skirt. He then turns to Louis.

“If we lose these items to the Venetians, who knows what will happen to them? The merchants there think only of money, and would no doubt sell them for the highest price—even if it came from a Jew.”

Louis pales. “God forgive us if we allowed such a thing to come to pass. A Jew, acquire the holy relics of Christ! They who sent our Savior to his death? They would destroy them as evidence of their sin.”

“Relics of Christ!” Marguerite catches her breath. “Which ones?”

The emperor pauses, looks around as if fearing he might be overheard. “The Crown of Thorns.”

Louis crosses himself.

“But why would you sell such a priceless item?” Marguerite says.

“The Roman Empire is in tatters. So many sieges and conquests. Constantinople is all that remains. My father lost much land.”

In the fight to regain his territory, the emperor borrowed heavily from Venice. As security for the loan, he gave up the Crown of Thorns. “The doge of Venice will sell it if I don’t repay him soon. I am in agony over it. After many long nights of prayer, the Lord has sent me to offer it to you.”