Four Sisters, All Queens (57 page)

But Margaret, with her keen wit, holds the place nearest the center of Eléonore’s heart. Her ready laugh always bubbles near the surface of her calm strength, making her every bit like her namesake. There were years, yes, when Marguerite’s laughter went unheard.
That harpy Blanche de Castille has strangled our Margi’s mirth with her iron hand,
their mother said once, but Eléonore never believed it. She knew her sister could not be repressed for long. And she was right: Returned from Outremer, with Blanche in the grave and Louis descending into madness, Marguerite, now ruling France, laughs more loudly than ever, not caring who thinks such behavior unseemly for a woman. How gay and confident she appeared at the Christmas gathering last year! Yet she seems, also, to have absorbed some of the White Queen’s less desirable qualities.

The shock and hurt on their sister Beatrice’s face during the Christmas feast, when Marguerite denied her a seat at the royal table, haunts Eléonore still. Should she have intervened more forcefully?

She did try. “Beatrice is our sister, Margi. Family comes first, remember? Family is more important than anything, more important than land or castles, more important than pride,” she said.

“She may be your sister, but she is mine no longer,” was Margi’s response, shocking Eléonore into silence. By saying nothing, did she betray Beatrice? Should she have done as Sanchia did, and moved to Beatrice’s table? But of course she could not have done so, not when she and Margi had just begun the work of establishing peace between their countries for the first time in nearly two hundred years.

Each of them has her reasons for wanting peace. Marguerite fears Henry might try again to re-take the lands his father lost. France would fare badly in a battle now. The Outremer campaign cost everything the kingdom owned, and more—including King Louis’s interest in this world. Eléonore, on the other hand, wants France’s help against the rebellion Simon is plotting.

Simon has reached the limits of his tolerance, and Eléonore cannot blame him. Henry has refused to pay the money that by right should be his and Eleanor’s. Yet she cannot criticize Henry’s obstinacy, either. Simon’s acerbic tongue has estranged Henry from him. When Eléonore declined to argue for him any more, he turned his vitriol on her. He now mutters against her, calling her a “foreigner,” which is laughable considering his own French ties, and blaming her for the fiasco in Gascony. She supported the rebel leader, her foreign cousin, he has been saying. She will do anything to further her family’s interests, even if it means harming England’s.

But of course she cannot argue with Henry, not even to help Simon. As much as Henry loves her, he is proud. He insists on loyalty.
If you are to be my queen, then you must work with me and not against me
. She had to agree, or be banished permanently from court. Now when she disagrees with him, she does so privately, and is careful to hide her displeasure when he ignores her counsel—which is rare.

Meanwhile, Simon is guilty of the very crime—selfishness—of which he accuses her. Ejected from Gascony, then recalled to help save it from the rebels, Simon struts like a rooster before the barons’ council, boasting of his worth to the kingdom while maligning its king. He blames Henry for the loss of Eleanor’s dower, although William Marshal’s relations have divided among themselves the lands and money he promised to her. He demands that Henry return Pembroke to him, although William de Valence holds legitimate claims to the castle. He insists that Henry pay him a higher sum for his expenditures in Gascony than the court required.

Eléonore has become increasingly alarmed as the barons, one by one, shift their allegiance to Simon. He tells them what they want to hear: That “foreigners” have taken the wealth that should belong to them, that their king’s “foreign” queen and “alien” brothers are enriching their relatives at the expense of the English. What is more, he leads the resistance to every new tax Henry tries to levy, saying that England should reserve its funds for England, not spend money on “foreign” lands such as Gascony and Sicily.
Then, having turned the barons’ attention inward, he sails to France to praise King Louis and make unflattering remarks about Henry. So far, his tactics have failed, Marguerite says. Louis and Henry are like brothers, with a shared love for God, art, and architecture. Bringing them together for Christmas is the best idea the sisters ever had. A peace treaty will certainly follow.

France’s treasury is finally recovering, thanks to Marguerite’s capable management. With peace between their kingdoms, France can help England should Simon stage a coup. And if Henry, under the treaty’s terms, gives up his claims to Normandy, Poitou, and Aquitaine, the barons may be satisfied at last. Battling across the channel has depleted their purses, too, causing much grumbling, especially since they also must defend their castles in the Marches, on England’s border, against the Welsh noble Llywelyn—and against the rebellious Scots.

Dusk falls as they arrive, horses lathering from the long ride, at the timbered gates to the massive Edinburgh Castle. The fortress sits high on a rock bluff, its towers and turrets and buildings seemingly impenetrable. They expect to be turned away, they and England’s finest knights—including Edward and his cousin Henry, Richard’s son. If they cannot enter the castle, they will lay siege to it.

Behind her, she hears Edward and Henry discussing strategies: Edward has learned the formula for Greek fire, and is eager to try it.

But Margaret may be in danger. They have heard nothing since the physician Reginald of Bath sent word that their daughter was indeed ill.
The melancholic humours have overwhelmed her
. She refused to leave her bed, he wrote, and would take only a small portion of food.
I shall demand a change in her circumstance
. Two days later, Reginald of Bath was dead. Poison, some whisper. Will the Scottish lords kill Margaret next?

To her relief, they are admitted at once, Eléonore and Henry and John Maunsell as well as Edward, Henry, and several of Edward’s Lusignan cousins. Soon they are in the great
hall, a vast but narrow room with a steeply angling timber ceiling. The regent Walter Comyn sits on the throne as if he were born to it. His clothing—a hood on his head!—was fashionable in England a century ago. His eyes glint like steel in the sunlight as he nods to Henry, but soften at the sight of Eléonore. During Margaret’s wedding Walter sent sly, winsome looks her way, and danced her until she was footsore. Eléonore, not Henry, will make their case to him.

For the occasion, she has removed her fillet and crespinettes and allowed her hair to hang loose, in the Scottish fashion. Walter of Comyn licks his lips as she speaks. They wish for an audience with their daughter and with King Alexander, she says. Reginald of Bath’s sudden death has alarmed them, and they need to know that Margaret is well.

The regent claps his hands, and a young man comes running from across the room. “Send for the young queen,” he says—but Eléonore interrupts.

“We wish to visit her chambers. We would observe her living conditions.”

With a snap of his fingers, he dismisses the youth, then turns to Henry. Margaret’s misfortunes, he says, are Henry’s fault. He should not have demanded King Alexander’s allegiance to England. The Scottish barons are determined to prevent the young king’s making such a pledge.

“He would do anything your daughter asks. For that reason, we have kept them apart. Scotland will never submit to English rule.”

Henry blinks, clearly not remembering his “demand” from the boy-king, made at the wedding. It was not, after all, his idea. The barons of the Scottish Marches urged it upon him, wishing to expand their domain.

A guard leads Eléonore up the narrow, winding steps to the castle’s tower. Margaret, still in bed, is pinching her cheeks to color them as her maids brush her long, tangled hair. Seeing her, Eléonore feels as if a hand were squeezing her heart. Her beautiful daughter looks like a skeleton, her cheeks sunken, the contours under her
eyes darkened, her arms like twigs. Eléonore cries out. Margaret drops her mirror, and then they are embracing, the girl as light as a bird, as if her bones were hollow. Eléonore holds her carefully, afraid she will break, but Margaret crushes her mother to her.

“Take me with you,” she whispers. “Don’t leave me here to die.”

“Command your ladies to leave us,” Eléonore murmurs. Margaret stares in wonder, as if she has never considered doing so. When she announces in a quavering voice that she wishes to be alone with her mother, none of them moves. They stand in place, giving each other confused looks. Clearly, they have been instructed to spy.

Eléonore stands and points to the door. “Refusing to obey your queen’s command amounts to treason.”

When they have gone, Eléonore sits on the bed and enfolds Margaret in her arms again. “Mama,” she says, and begins to cry. “I knew you would come.”

T
HE
L
ORD
R
OGER
de Clifford is shouting, his fur hat fallen off (a good thing, Eléonore thinks, for in it he resembles a mole), his lips glistening with spittle, his face predictably red. Shouting has become
de rigueur
in the barons’ council of late. Even Simon de Montfort has taken to it, not red-faced but with eyes that shine and look outward through the walls, as though he surveyed a far horizon.

“I see blood—England’s lifeblood, draining away,” he shouts. “Gascony. Poitou. And now, Sicily. Why should we pay one hundred thousand pounds for the pope’s war against Manfred of Hohenstaufen? If the queen’s uncles want a Savoyard on the throne in the Regno, let them pay the price. We cannot give any more! These foreign ventures are sucking us dry.”

Eléonore rolls her eyes, but the barons are enrapt. The young Earl of Gloucester leers at her. “Sucked dry, yes,” he says into the Earl of Chester’s ear, but she can hear him. “By foreigners.” He lifts his face to join in the shouting. “Sucked dry by foreigners!”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” she mutters, and walks over to Henry, to whom Richard is saying, “Surely you do not expect me to lend you the money, after you have robbed me of the taxes of eighteen wealthy Jews.”

“They were accused of heinous crimes. Crucifying that poor child! And they refused to be tried in a Christian court,” Henry says.

“And now they are dead, and their property is yours.”

“But I released the others at your request. Including your personal Jew.”

“I am not going to lend you money for Sicily. I have already contributed one thousand pounds to ransom Thomas of Savoy.” Uncle Thomas’s rule being unpopular with his subjects in Turin, they have imprisoned him and now demand an exorbitant ransom.

“My uncle will repay you,” Eléonore says. Thomas promised to pay the pope’s new fee—with a new pope come new demands—for an attack on Frederick II’s son Manfred, who has crowned himself King of Sicily. “Until we pay the pope, we cannot claim the throne for Edmund.”

“If I were going to conquer Sicily, I would take it for myself,” Richard says.

“Are you interested in being King of Sicily now?” Eléonore asks. “After you refused it before?”

“My lady.” Her niece, Agnes de Saluzzo, curtseys before her. Sanchia has awakened at last, she says. Eléonore sweeps out the door, her ladies behind, lifting her skirts.

In her chambers, Sanchia lies on the bed and stares dully with eyes swollen from last night’s tears.

“I did not kill her.”

“I know, dear.” She sits on the bed and holds her sister’s trembling hand.

“You must believe me.”

“Of course I do.”

“Richard doesn’t.”

“Richard believes whatever is expedient.”

“He convinced Henry to free that murderer Abraham, and now he’ll bring him to Berkhamsted to live with us again.” She grips Eléonore’s hand. “Abraham will kill me next.”

“Sweet Sanchia! Why would anyone want to kill you?”

“He killed her to save his honor. He’ll kill me to keep it quiet.”

When did her sister develop such a vivid imagination? When they were girls, Eléonore and Marguerite were the ones who wrote songs and sang them, pretending to be troubadours, or invented tales about Lancelot and King Arthur and acted the parts, while Sanchia sat in the corner and drew pictures, content in her own, presumably dull, world.

“Abraham’s confession is more sordid than anything you might reveal.” According to the document, penned by Richard, he smothered his wife to death for cleaning a Madonna and Child painting he had hung over the toilet in an act of desecration.