The Girl Who Would Be Queen

by Jane Ann McLachlan

  The horse tosses its head, throwing foam from its lips as it fights the bit. The excited crowd of townsfolk pressing around it, yelling and throwing rotted fruit at the prisoner inside the cart has terrified it, and the driver strains to hold it from bolting. Inside the iron cage behind the driver a man is standing with his back and head bent, his legs and arms chained to opposite ends of the cage so that he is spread-eagled, standing as upright as the ceiling of the cage makes possible. Behind the cage, at the end of the wagon bed, a torturer dressed in black leggings and tunic holds a pair of iron pincers. Charles of Artois rides beside the wagon on his massive black stallion, shouting questions to the prisoner concerning the details of the plot.

  The man in the cage—Tommaso—neither answers nor looks up in response to Charles’ questions. I watch the torturer dip his pincers into a cauldron of hot coals beside him, and thrust the sizzling end through the bars of the cage to seize Tommaso’s flesh. An inhuman, gurgling cry which makes my flesh crawl comes from Tommaso.

  I would not recognize him as the man I saw only weeks ago. His hair is no longer fair, but filthy and wet—I realize the red tint is his blood, which covers his limbs and the tattered loin cloth over his maleness. His arms, legs and torso are scorched and bleeding from the burning pincers. I look away, feeling my gorge rise, but cannot help looking back when Charles of Artois shouts another question: “Who were your accomplices? Speak up and your death will be merciful and swift.”

  I cannot imagine how he dares ask, unless my suspicions are wrong? Let it be someone else, I pray, my hands gripping the balcony rail and my eyes fixed on Tommaso’s bent head. Slowly he raises his head, until he is staring at Charles of Artois with a look so full of hatred and—loathing? betrayal?—No, I must be wrong, it is only suffering, his agony has eclipsed all other emotions, he is not even trying to answer the questions.

  “You refuse to speak? You will not tell us their names?” Charles of Artois roars. The crowd bellows its outrage in response as the torturer applies the pincers. Tommaso opens his mouth and the terrible, eerie noise pours forth again. There is something wrong, but I am too occupied in swallowing the gorge that rises in my throat, to know what it is...

  “It is all a show,” my husband says, his voice low for my ears only. “He has his tongue cut out. He cannot confess anyone’s name, even if he wants to. It is a spectacle to appease the people, to give them a villain to blame and a pretense of justice. The Queen will never yield up those who are truly guilty, nor let men like this confess their names.”

  “Stop!” My voice, a fierce whisper, surprises him. I am gripping the railing so tightly my hands are white, but I raise my head and look him in the eye. “Say no more, my Lord. You speak treason.”

  A look comes over Charles’ face, an expression both proud and fierce, as I imagine he must look in battle before he kills a man. I never thought such a look would be turned on me, but I do not look away, or lower my eyes. I am speaking as a royal princess, to a duke. He looks at me a moment longer, then turns his head. He is silent, but I have not won. I have lost a great deal. I fear we will never get back what I have lost, but at least he is silent, watching the wagon pass down the street below us and around the next corner with its cruel parody of justice.

  Despite my sister’s army of letters, another army of words moves faster: rumor. Andrew’s nursemaid, Isabelle the Hungarian, sent her son Nicholas, on the very day of Andrew’s murder, to inform the Dowager Queen of Hungary of her son’s death. We have barely returned to Castle Durazzo in Naples when Margherita comes to my room, pale-faced and trembling, to tell me she has heard people talking of Queen Joanna as blushing and averting her dry eyes in shame when she was told of the murder, of her hiding away from her people out of guilt.

  “Who says so?” I cry, and before she can answer, “They lie! The Queen is innocent. I was there!” Not when he died, a little voice inside me whispers.

  “Domenico da Gravina and Giovanni Villani, the most respected chroniclers in Florence, are saying these things.”

  “It is not true,” I insist, but I am shaken. I remember my sister, frozen in the doorway of her room, as pale as a ghost. Surprise and shock? Or guilt at being caught?

  “What will you do?” I asked her, the night our grandfather died. “Whatever I must,” she said. “I will keep the oath I made this night, whatever it requires of me. Before God, I will be sole ruler of my Kingdom!”

  Is it possible?

  No, it is not. Joanna would never condone murder. She is ambitious, but not ruthless. I have seen ruthless, in my cousins, in my own husband. But never in my sister. She prays with the same devotion our grandmother had, she washes the feet of the poor at Easter, she is devoted to God and to His Church. I know she would never do such a thing, or allow it to happen if she had known. But who else knows her as I do?

  I think of her shut in her chamber in Aversa, writing her letters, instead of returning to Naples with her husband’s body. Instead of being there when he was interred at the Cathedral of Naples, as we were there when our grandfather was interred at Santa Chiara. She has treated this as a political calamity instead of a personal one, and no one is blind to that.

  Margherita is looking at me, no doubt wondering at my silence. “How do they know in Florence what happened here?” I demand.

  “Nicholas the Hungarian stopped in Florence on his way to Hungary. Apparently, they are spreading the story he told.”

  His story. Because he was here. And that is the version he will take to the Hungarian court. “Does Her Majesty know? Has anyone told her what he is saying?”

  Margherita lowers her eyes. “I am sure I do not know what Her Majesty the Queen knows.” I snap my fingers, impatient with her bitterness at still being excluded from court. “But everyone else knows it,” she adds. “I do not see how she could not.”

  “It is a lie.”

  She does not look at me.

  “Margherita, it is a lie. I was there, that night. And you know Her Majesty, you grew up with her. Do you think she would do this?”

  “No...” Margherita says. She sighs, as though reluctant to give up the titillating story.

  “Be certain to say so if anyone else whispers these lies to you! They are not only false, but treasonous.” I almost add, remember the axe and the stake: that is what we have all escaped by his death. But I stop myself, for words can be repeated, and anyone can be accused of doing what needed doing.

  I have to hope Joanna’s army of missives will prevail. There is nothing more I can do. I have already delayed going into my confinement as long as I can. I must do nothing to endanger the life of the son I pray I am carrying, for if Joanna has a girl, my son may still be the next King of Naples.

  Chapter Twenty-Six: Wolves at the Gate

  A girl. I look down at my daughter sleeping in her cradle, and wonder if my mother felt this way about me, a second daughter when a son was needed. Charles has been notified but has sent no word. As the days pass, I realize there will be none: no congratulations, no message of relief and joy that I and our daughter are safely through childbirth, not even any instructions as to her name. I am ill with regret. My husband’s silence, the silence of all the Durazzos—except loyal Margherita who has left her own family to come into confinement with me—is physically painful to me. I almost miss my critical mother-in-law, who would most certainly have come to see the baby, complaining about her all the while and my inadequacy in producing boys. She would have insisted on naming her over my objections. Even that would have been better than silence, as though it is not worth the Durazzo family’s time to choose a name for this unwanted girl.

  When Margherita arrives to take her to be baptized in the castle chapel—no public ceremony followed by a feast for this baby—she tells me my daughter is to be named Agnes, for her grandmother. This is unwelcome news, but as I lift her from her cradle to hand to Margherita, my daughter looks at me and purses her mouth, as though she is sharing a private joke with me. I cannot h
elp but smile. She is a pretty little thing, and contented with her lot regardless of the lack of festivity over her arrival. She rarely cries, but eats well and sleeps soundly and entertains herself when she is awake with watching everything in her small world. She will make a good, obedient wife, I think a little sadly. It is a virtue I seem unable to master.

  When they return, I ask to have little Joanna brought to my confinement room to see her sister. The nurse arrives, sour-faced, and sets her down reluctantly. I hold out my arms and experience the joy of having my daughter stagger eagerly into them. I lift her onto my lap and present her sister, sleeping in the cradle. Joanna examines Agnes critically. For a moment I think she, too, is disappointed by a girl, but Joanna is too young to know her sex is a detriment. She smiles and says with satisfaction, “I am much bigger.”

  “Yes, you are. You will have to take care of little Agnes, and protect her, because you are the oldest.” And all that comes with that, I think, feeling for the first time a tender sympathy for my new daughter, who will always be the second girl.

  In mid-November I am churched and leave my confinement.

  “The Tarantos have won,” are Charles’ first, curt words to me as we sit together at dinner. No time wasted asking after his new daughter, or my well-being. His expression is cold and he looks away from me. For him, I was a gamble—one that has not paid off, I think with a heavy heart.

  “What have they won?” My calm response belies the fear I always feel when Charles is displeased with me.

  “The crown of Naples!”

  For a moment I cannot speak. Have they killed my sister as they killed Andrew? And stolen my crown for themselves?

  I catch my breath. Even in confinement I would have heard of an armed attack on Naples—and it would have required an armed rebellion to put my Taranto cousins in power. My husband would have done battle to keep my inheritance, and the people of Naples would have risen up—they love Queen Joanna. Even if the idea of a woman driven to have her husband killed fascinates them, even if it makes them shiver and cross themselves, they know it is only a story. They know what Andrew was, they know they would have suffered under him, and they know Joanna loves her subjects as much as Andrew despised them.

  My relief is short-lived. There is only one way the Tarantos can have secured the crown without a battle; only one possibility that would make Charles look at me as though I am an obstacle in his way.

  “Who?” I ask, but I already know the answer. “Louis.” She has always favored him. Charles would never have had a chance, even if he had waited instead of marrying me. Now Joanna has everything: a husband she loves, the Kingdom of Naples, and an heir in her belly. And I, what do I have? A nursery of girls and a husband who will never make me a queen. I look up at Charles, wondering whether I still have a husband who loves me, and realize he is talking.

  “...Robert of Taranto is boasting all over Naples that the Queen has asked Clement VI for a dispensation to marry again.”

  “Robert of Taranto?” Why would Robert be boasting? I could tell him how little it means to be the sibling of the monarch.

  “Robert.” Charles nods, as though I have confirmed his very thoughts. “This proves his complicity in King Andrew’s murder.”

  “You think Lord Robert killed the duke in order to further his brother’s ambition?” I stare at Charles stupidly. Surely he knows our cousin Robert better than that. Robert would not stir himself to save his own mother, let alone to help a younger brother. I remember a time when we were all young, and Louis beat Robert in an archery tournament. Robert immediately turned his bow upon his younger brother. If my grandfather, King Robert, had not roared at young Robert Taranto to disarm himself, Louis would never have seen his thirteenth birthday.

  “Brother? What brother? Are your wits addled from your women’s time? I am speaking of Robert, not his brothers. Robert of Taranto has written to Clement VI for a dispensation to marry Queen Joanna, and she has also petitioned the Pope to marry him!”

  “Marry Robert? She cannot marry Robert! He is an arrogant, ruthless... monster!”

  “Well, we are agreed on that, at least.”

  “You must be mistaken, my Lord. It is impossible. Joanna would never agree—”

  “There is no mistake. The situation is plain and simple. Lord Robert has moved into Castle Nuovo with a large number of his men—the rest are to be seen everywhere, in the city, outside the castle—”

  “Moved in? On who’s authority? Not Joanna’s, never by her invitation. She has been coerced, forced to—” I cannot finish, I am choking on my own words.

  “Are you still so naïve, Maria? Men do not await a woman’s invitation. You should know that from our own marriage.” He laughs.

  Joanna’s warning echoes again in my head: He has made us vulnerable. He has made it possible for men to lay hands on those God anoints to rule them. What have I done? A single thoughtless action, the giddy consent of a young girl who imagined herself in love... And what has it led to? Where will it end?

  I was just a child, I could not have foreseen this, a desperate voice in my head pleads.

  Joanna would have, the answer comes. Joanna would have understood the consequences at any age; Joanna has always thought like a queen.

  And now, if I would help her, I must think like one also. Why would the Queen of Naples allow Robert to move into Castle Nuovo with his men?

  It is not thinking like a queen that helps me, but thinking like a new mother. How helpless we are, praying for our life and the life of the child we carry, as we enter those rooms. And if the Hungarians should come to claim Andrew’s throne while she is shut away? Robert is the wealthiest duke in the kingdom, he can summon an army among his vassals large enough to defend Naples until Joanna is churched and able to order up her own army once again.

  But Robert’s army is loyal to Robert. What if the real enemy is within? Robert has always frightened me. How much worse must it be for Joanna, locked in her confinement where her guards cannot reach her, with no protector?

  “Who has gone into confinement with her?”

  “Isabelle the Hungarian.”

  I am stunned to silence. Andrew’s nurse. She despises Joanna. Her son is responsible for half the rumors of Joanna’s culpability in Andrew’s death. What is my sister thinking, to put herself in the hands of her enemy when she is most vulnerable?

  The answer comes to me at once. It is because of Robert. She is afraid he might harm the babe, making way for his own offspring to inherit the throne when he has forced her to wed him. I imagine my sister torn between these two devils, surrounded by those who despise her and whom she despises as she awaits the most dangerous hours of childbirth.

  I jump up from my chair. “I must go to her at once.”

  Charles smiles slowly. I am disgusted to see it. Another wolf laying plots to trap my sister. But Joanna is no lamb for their taking, she is a queen in every way; they will all learn that.

  “I will stay with her for the rest of her confinement.” I do not wait for Charles’ permission. I am afraid if I hesitate at all, I will change my mind. I am walking into a pit of snakes, they will not hesitate to strike me if I get in their way. But Joanna is my sister: a bond that can never be broken. I call for my maid to pack my things and prepare herself to come with me.

  “If you think it best,” Charles says, looking smug, as though my decision was all his idea. And perhaps it was. Perhaps he led me to it. I have never been the cleverest one among the Angevins. But it does not matter. Joanna needs me. Isabelle the Hungarian and Robert of Taranto! Circling her like hawks assessing their prey. But I will be there soon. If anything should happen to my sister or her child, it will be God’s doing and no one else’s, I will make certain of that.

  Charles smiles at me. I know what he is thinking: if it is God’s will to take her, I will be right there, beside her, to catch my crown as it falls from her head, before another can steal it. Just as Charles intended I should be.

&nbs
p; Robert will try to kill me before he will let Charles take the throne, if it comes to that. Has my husband thought of that?

  “But will they let you go in to her?” Charles muses.

  I snort. Robert most likely fears Isabelle the Hungarian will kill Joanna before she will let Robert of Taranto marry her, and Isabelle no doubt fears Robert will try to kill Andrew’s child, especially if it is a boy. I cannot imagine Joanna trusts either one. I am the balance that each of them will count on to hold the other in check. And if God should weigh in, I will be the proof that He did not have human hands helping Him.

  “They will let me,” I say. “Joanna will insist upon it. In a way that will be remembered should I be refused and anything happen.”

  “Go to your sister, with my blessing,” Charles says grandly. I study his face. He smiles blandly at me. Yes, he is aware of the risk to me, and worse, he thinks I have not realized it. I turn away with a heavy heart. Once again he is gambling, and I am his pawn. Nevertheless, I am going not at Charles’ bidding, but on my own. But his smirk is annoying, so I snap, “See that little Agnes is well-cared for, while I am seeing to the Crown of Naples.”

  He deliberately misunderstands me; I see it at once in his broad smile.

  I should have said, the Queen of Naples, not the crown. He knows well enough that is what I meant, that they are the same thing. And yet he smiles that complicit smile, and any denial I offer now will only make him laugh.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven: A Royal Heir

  Robert himself comes to greet me when I am announced at the door to Castle Nuovo. No doubt he wishes to make certain my husband’s escort returns to Castle Durazzo and I enter alone with my maid. My legs shake as I curtsey to him, the smallest bend possible. He bows his head as though he is Lord of the castle. I walk straight and proud past him, but he sees through the act and smiles tauntingly at me before he leaves.