The Girl Who Would Be Queen

by Jane Ann McLachlan

  Robert bows to me. I curtsy to him. We take three mincing steps forward and touch hands, palm to palm. Some ladies barely graze their partner’s palm with their fingers, but I put my full palm against Robert’s and smile at him. “Congratulations, Cousin, on your victory in archery,” I whisper, referring to yesterday’s tournament which he won. We turn sideways and slide three steps to our original places. When we approach each other again, he murmurs, “I did not know you were fond of archery. I shall win every tournament for you, in future.”

  “I am flattered,” I whisper, and smile flirtatiously over my shoulder as I leave him. In fact I am surprised. This dress, this evening, has somehow changed me from a girl into a desirable woman, just as Joanna promised. Robert smiles back gallantly and lets his hand linger on my waist a moment before he turns me under his raised arm and sends me, laughing, to my next partner. I have mysteriously learned to flirt without blushing. When I reach Charles my real smile will be safely hidden by these foolish ones.

  I must dance with two more partners before it is Charles’ turn with me. I chatter with each of them. Joanna will be watching, but what can she say if I speak to everyone I dance with? We will have two brief exchanges. Is Charles preparing his lines as feverishly as I am? I do not dare ask him outright if he still means the question he put to me in the garden. But what if his heart has changed? What if Joanna has spoken to him and he has found a bride she will accept? I have to know.

  Robert of Taranto, dancing beside us in our set, must not imagine we are discussing anything more serious than my comments were to him. I have no doubt he is listening even more closely than Joanna is watching. The Tarantos and the Durazzos are excessively interested in each others’ doings. My cousin Robert will be very sure to hear what I say to my cousin Charles, and will repeat every word to his Lady Mother.

  Lord Philip sends me twirling toward Charles. His hand, touching my waist to claim me as his partner, burns through my gown. It is all I can do not to shiver, and almost more than I can do to move apart. The music saves me, informing my steps, instinct over desire.

  “I am sorry you missed the tournament,” I murmur. And then, as we move apart, I am tormented by the fear that he might not know I mean that I am sorry about his absence at court, and will think I am telling him he has lost. I smile intently, flirtatiously, just as I did to Robert, willing him to take my real meaning. I can barely breathe as I take the three small steps toward him. Our palms meet.

  His hand against mine is strong, sure, and warm. I imagine it touching me beneath my gown and this time I cannot help myself shivering. It is so slight I am sure only he will notice the tremble in my palm.

  He smiles down at me. “It is only the first round,” he says. Robert will think he is referring to the fact that there will be several more tournaments before this year’s overall victor is declared. My smile widens. “I admire perseverance, Cousin,” I tell him. His eyes meet mine. We are in accord! I am so filled with joy I fear it must spill out, like an overfull jug. My eyes, my smile, my very skin glows with happiness. When it is time for me to sidestep back, I cannot take my hand from his. I want to feel his touch on my skin forever. Even the music cannot make me move. We are one; it would be like tearing a part of myself away, to separate my palm from his.

  With a slight bow of his head and a knowing smile, Charles lowers his hand. I take a little breath against the loss and close my hand, holding onto the warmth of his palm where it touched mine. I do not have to feign the longing gaze I send over my shoulder as I slip away.

  We have one more opportunity to speak as I cross in front of him, but all the sentences I formed in my mind disappear. I can only think: He has not given up! He wants me still!

  When I feel the skirt of my gown brushing against him, I long to lean back, to step into his arms. How delicious his arms felt around me in the garden; I have dreamed of it every night since. I feel him lean forward—the very air is charged with his nearness—

  “My Lady Mother is very taken with... your gown,” he murmurs. “She mentioned it to your Lady Grandmother, who most graciously agreed with her. I do hope you will have occasion to wear it again soon.”

  He takes my hand and turns me under his arm, and sends me, giddy with joy, back to Robert.

  Chapter Nine: An Engagement

  “It does not matter what you want, Maria. It does not matter what either of us want. We must marry to form alliances.” Joanna regards me coldly from her chair as I stand before her in her privy room. I do not bow my head, but meet her gaze evenly, insulted that she should tell me what every royal child knows by the age of two.

  “I am as devoted to the Angevins as you are, Your Majesty.”

  “Then marry accordingly.”

  It is almost more than I can do, not to accuse her of jealousy. I take a deep breath. “What will another French marriage accomplish? We are already allied with the French King as Angevins, as well as through our mother and our Lady Aunt. What difference will one more marriage make?”

  “Our Lady Mother is dead, and our Lady Aunt Catherine, sister to Philip VI of France...”

  She does not say it outright but we both know our ambitious Lady Aunt Catherine is not our ally; she wants one of her sons to wear Joanna’s crown.

  “King Robert’s choice was not arbitrary,” she continues in a more sympathetic voice, the voice of my sister, not my Queen. “He knew I would need a voice in the ear of France to balance our Lady Aunt’s. I need you there, Maria. I trust only you.”

  “I trust only you,” I say quietly. “So keep me here where I can support you, sister. Do not send me away.”

  Joanna hesitates, but then I see her face change: the sister fades and the Queen returns. “I must have you settled. You are the heir to this throne, and wealthy in your own right. Every nobleman with ambition has one eye on you and the other on who else might try to claim you. They will not fight the King of France or his son, but they would fall on each other for your hand, and the victor will turn against me, while the losers turn against both of us. I need their support. I dare not make more enemies than I already have. If I give you to Charles, I tip the balance between Durazzo and Taranto, and who knows what might fall off the scales onto my head? I cannot take that risk, not even for you, Maria. Do not ask me again.”

  The door opens. Joanna looks up, amazed that anyone would enter her privy chamber without her permission. Our Lady Grandmother Sancia walks in, the only person in Naples who would do so.

  “And if there were a weight upon the scale? A weight so heavy and holy none would dare attempt to dislodge it?”

  I stare at her with my mouth open as she walks across the room not even pretending that she has not been listening at the Queen’s door. Joanna’s face is still and expressionless, a certain sign that she is furious.

  “If you do not wish to be overheard, Granddaughter, you must learn to keep your voice low,” Sancia says mildly. Joanna’s face goes even more still. Our Grandmother ignores this sign, though surely she knows Joanna well enough to recognize it. She taught it to her herself.

  “My Lady Grandmother,” Joanna says, inclining her head as though our Grandmother has already curtseyed to her.

  “I am too old to bend my knees to you in private,” Grandmother Sancia tells her.

  “Please be seated, Lady Grandmother.” Joanna barely gets the words out before our grandmother creaks down onto a chair. “You might as well sit also, sister.”

  I choose a seat to the side, glad to step away from my position between them. My Grandmother Sancia’s arrival fills me with hope. Charles told me she approved of our match. We sit in awkward silence. I am beginning to think Joanna will not grant Our Lady Grandmother permission to speak, when at last she says, “Have you something to say to me, Lady Grandmother?”

  “Dowager Queen,” Sancia reminds her. “I have come to tell you I approve of this match. And more than that, to tell you that Clement VI approves of it.”

  “His Holiness merely approv
ed my cousin Charles marrying.”

  “He knows exactly who the young Duke of Durazzo plans to marry.”

  “Plans to?” Joanna’s voice is icy.

  Grandmother Sancia waits just long enough to let Joanna hear the tone of voice she has used to the Dowager Queen of Naples before she begins her attack.

  “Would you go against your Holy Father, Grandchild? Are you already so filled with the vanity of your position that His Holiness’ consent strikes you as being of less importance than your own? Are you so certain of your ability to rule that you are ready after one month to toss aside my advice? I, the head of your council?”

  “They will never agree to it,” Joanna says, cowed but not yet beaten.

  Grandmother Sancia looks at her steadily. I am so anxious, so caught between hope and despair, and so glad that for once that measuring look is not trained on me, that I begin to hiccup, covering my mouth to hide it. Joanna does not wilt, as I always do, but she has lost. No one can stand firm against Our Lady Grandmother when she wears that look.

  “The question,” Grandmother Sancia says, “Is how to go about it.” She arches one eyebrow at Joanna.

  Joanna shoots me a look intended to be as devastating as Grandmother Sancia’s, but she has not been practicing it as long. I give her a very small smile, conciliatory, not gloating. I am very pleased with that smile, until I spoil the effect by hiccupping.

  “It cannot come from me. I cannot be seen to award her to Charles.”

  “Let it come from me, then,” Grandmother Sancia decides. “You are still a minor and I am the head of your council. I will throw the engagement party.”

  “Here? At Castle Nuovo?”

  Engagement party? I hiccup loudly and clap my hand over my mouth. They both ignore me.

  “Where else?”

  Joanna swallows her objections, although I can see they are very nearly choking her. She turns to me. “You had better be happy, sister, for I fear I will pay dearly for this.”

  I am, indeed, deliriously happy.

  ***

  The formal celebration of my engagement to the Duke of Durazzo is set for March twenty-six, a bare three weeks away. The day after the announcement has been made public, our Lady Aunt Catherine sweeps into my sister’s presence chamber with a face that would turn the Medusa to stone. Our ladies-in-waiting scramble to their feet to curtsy, eying the door. Joanna nods for them to leave. I rise also, hoping to escape with them, but Joanna stops me with a piercing glance.

  Catherine, Empress of Constantinople, Duchess of Taranto, sister to the King of France, paces across my sister’s presence chamber with the same appearance of barely controlled violence as the lioness in our menagerie. “Please be seated, Lady Aunt,” Joanna says calmly when we three are alone.

  “I think I will stand, Your Highness,” Aunt Catherine says, stopping before Joanna. She looks at me, then back to my sister. “I do not know the intent of this... engagement. I do not know whose idea it was, or why you have agreed to it. I do not know and I do not care. My sons are closer to the throne than Agnes of Durazzo’s son, and have more to offer in lands and riches through an alliance, as you well know. And yet you pass us over in favor of Durazzo?”

  There is a pause, as though Joanna is considering her arguments. I hold my breath and desperately try not to even think of hiccupping.

  “I cannot end what I did not begin, Lady Aunt Catherine. I confess, this engagement is not of my choosing. As you know, I had hoped for a union with France.” Joanna does not so much as glance at me but I feel the lash and maintain my impassive expression with difficulty.

  “I will not stand for this insult, this slight to my family. The engagement must be ended at once!”

  “I would happily oblige you, but as you know, I am a minor and must follow the advice I am given.” Joanna spreads her hands wide, palms up, in a gesture of resignation. “The Duke of Durazzo has a bull from Pope Clement VI, permitting him to marry whom he will, and he has chosen the royal princess Maria. Our Holy Father has sanctioned this engagement, and my Lady Grandmother, the head of the council appointed to advise me, has approved it. Would you care to speak with her, Lady Catherine?”

  “I have already done so!” My aunt’s hands clench at her side. She is so angry she is unaware that she has just told the Queen of Naples she appealed to the Dowager Queen to overthrow a royal engagement before speaking to the Queen herself.

  “When I say that I will not stand for it,” she continues through gritted teeth, “I am not using a figure of speech. This is an insult to my brother the King of France, to whose son you have already offered the princess’ hand. And it is an insult to my sons, who are more worthy of her hand than Durazzo. You insult us at your peril.”

  I am greatly tempted to defend Charles’ worth. He led an expedition to regain Sicily for us. What did her sons do for the Kingdom of Naples? They were off reclaiming Achaia for their own family! I remember the curl of my Cousin Robert’s sneer. As if I would willingly marry him!

  “No insult is meant to King Philip or to yourself, my Lady Aunt.”

  “Then end this absurd engagement. What can you possibly hope to gain from it?”

  “It is a marriage of love,” I say.

  Joanne gives me a single glance.

  Lady Catherine looks at me as though a servant has spoken back to her. I am an object to her, a thing that might prove valuable in the future if she can possess it. A thing she does not want another to possess. Right now her glance is withering, as though I have just proved myself less valuable than she imagined. She turns back to Joanna.

  “She may have been fooled by his pretty love-talk, but I hope you are not. I trust you know exactly what is happening here.”

  Before I can open my mouth, Joanna sends me a warning look. I press my lips tight together. Why am I here if I cannot defend myself and Charles from my aunt’s insinuations? Joanna does not defend me either, which makes it doubly unfair that I may not speak.

  She spreads her hands again. “I cannot hope to gain anything from it,” she says with an air of resignation. “But neither will anyone else. Please be assured, my Lady Aunt, that this is not a slight to you or your sons. Indeed, I intend to be generous to your sons, whose virtues I well know, when I reach my majority.”

  Lady Catherine pauses. She glances at me as though measuring my worth against future favors. “I still object,” she says proudly. “I will write to my brother to tell him of my objection.”

  “Of course,” Joanna says smoothly. “I understand how you feel.” She pointedly frowns at me as though to prove this whole thing is not of her making.

  Which it is not, I think, with a pang of guilt. It is my fault entirely; I led Charles into the garden and let him see my distress at the thought of him marrying someone else. I befriended him and confided in him and encouraged him to hope that he had a chance to win my hand. I am fully to blame for him falling in love with me. Instead of regret I feel a smile tugging at my lips and must repress it.

  “At any rate,” Joanna is saying, “it is only an engagement. Perhaps King Philip will speak to His Holiness. Perhaps they will both write to my Lady Grandmother and my council. Anything can happen between an engagement and a marriage, Lady Catherine.”

  She does not look at me as she says this but I am sure my sister is as aware of my alarm as I am aware of my Lady Aunt’s grim smile as she curtseys and leaves the room.

  “What do you mean, ‘anything can happen’?” I cry as soon as the door has closed.

  “You forget yourself, Princess Maria,” Joanna says coldly. When I bow my head in apology, she adds, “You need not ask me what I meant. It was you who taught me to expect the unexpected.”

  When I have no answer, she leans toward me. “Do you even understand what I am trying to do, Maria?”

  “To keep us safe,” I murmur, looking down, ashamed. I never meant to burden my already-burdened sister; I never meant to endanger her rule.

  “Safe?” Her voice is wear
y, but as she speaks it strengthens. “I am trying for more than safe, sister. Under my rule, Naples will be the jewel of Europe, a center for learning and art, for law and justice, for faith and piety. Naples, the city Petrarch chose for his public examination for the honor of being named Poet Laureate of Rome. He would be examined nowhere else and by none other than our learned Grandfather, King Robert the Wise. Our university is renowned throughout the civilized world, and our library is the envy of European scholars everywhere. Our reign is blessed by His Holiness the Pope and by the pious Franciscans who make their home here. It is my duty to maintain all this and more, to increase Naples’ prestige and prosperity.

  “But first, as you point out, we must be safe, and for that, I must have our cousins’ support. This love-match, this marriage as fanciful and misguided as a troubadour’s song, could well bring everything tumbling down upon our heads. ”

  “No! I swear not!” I cry. “I promise you, Charles will be your right arm. Charles will defend Naples with his life, he will keep your kingdom safe!” I fall to my knees before her, my sister and my Queen, and I am certain, absolutely certain, that with our help, she will do all she has vowed to do. “I swear to you, on Charles’ life, that we will be true!”

  Joanna looks down at me. I cannot read her expression—sorrow? Regret? Resignation?—she takes my hands, and draws me up. “So be it,” she says.

  ***

  Charles does not return to court. Nor does Joanna send bolts of cloth and seamstresses to my rooms to measure me for my marriage trousseau. Instead, Sancia of Cabannis, Philippa’s granddaughter, comes. She curtseys low to me, but I am so surprised to see her, I acknowledge her curtsy and welcome her into my presence chamber with a single bow of my head. Having greeted me, she goes to an alcove apart from my ladies-in-waiting, and sits down with her sewing.

  When we were young we played together, Joanna and Sancia of Cabannis and me. She was our favorite playmate, quick-witted and imaginative as well as cheerful and sweet-natured. She is one of Joanna’s ladies-in-waiting now, and they are still fast friends, but I have avoided her ever since I stopped calling Philippa ‘mother’. She must be here with a message from Joanna. She would not come of her own accord, unsure of a welcome, but I am so happy in the expectation of my engagement that I can afford to listen. When I am ready to.