The Pearl of France

by Caroline Newark

  She stopped, clearly unsure which my betrothed would fear more - that he would fail in his attempts to father a child or that he would find himself unable to perform his duties as a husband should.

  July drifted into August, the hay had been cut and soon it would be harvest time. The treaty was signed and Philip had taken his household to Chartres. My heart fluttered daily in fear that some new upset would result in the treaty being torn up but to Blanche’s joy, the formal announcement was made of her betrothal. Rudolph, the eldest son of the king of the Romans, would travel to Paris next year, where in a solemn service and with all due pageantry he would marry the younger sister of the king of France.

  ‘He is handsome, Marguerite,’ enthused my sister. ‘And young, only a few years older than me. He’s a duke but his father has promised him a crown. I shall be queen of ... ?’

  She wrinkled up her nose and pretended she was thinking hard.

  ‘Louis says it will be the Bohemian crown for Rudolf,’ I said kindly.

  ‘I know that. You don’t need to tell me.’

  Now that her own future was settled, Blanche was more generous to me and refused to believe what the others were saying.

  ‘Don’t listen to those old pussies,’ she said. ‘You will have a lovely marriage. Think of the dreams we had: the gowns and the jewels and the furs.’

  I forbore to remind Blanche that those were her dreams, not mine. She had also conveniently forgotten our childhood fear of marrying an old grey-beard with no teeth and a sagging belly.

  The following day my mother sent a woman to instruct me on my duties as a wife. I thought she would be young, a married woman with a little experience who would settle my fears, but I was mistaken. She was old, her face hidden by her veil, but her eyes, sunk amidst pouches of wrinkled skin, were keen and noticing.

  It was only a matter of days until I left for England and my chamber was full of chests overflowing with extravagant finery. I rose from the lonely contemplation of my precious books and bade her sit.

  ‘Your lady mother has required me to talk with you,’ she began.

  I knew immediately that she was not one of us. Perhaps she came from my mother’s home of Brabant on the far side of the River Scheldt where people spoke differently.

  ‘You are to be married,’ she said, seating herself heavily, smoothing the drab-coloured gown over her knees. Her worn boots peeped out from below the dark cloth and sat incongruously amidst the ribbons and girdles and embroidered slippers strewn on the floor.

  ‘Yes,’ I replied.

  She gazed at me as if assessing me for the market.

  ‘You are small for your age, I think, and narrow too. How old are you?’

  ‘I shall be twenty before the year is out.’

  ‘Old enough for marriage. Come!’ she beckoned for me to approach. To my surprise and alarm she ran her hands over my hips, clicking her tongue and muttering to herself.

  ‘As I thought, not good, not good.’

  I felt I had failed in some degree but at what I didn’t know.

  ‘Your betrothed is not a young man, I hear?’

  ‘No, almost sixty they tell me.’

  ‘Tsk!’ she clicked her tongue in irritation. ‘Old fool! What are they thinking of? Now, listen closely to me and mark my words well.’

  She told me what my husband would do to me on our wedding night and how I must submit, no matter what.

  ‘It may hurt at first,’ she said, ‘but you will get used to it and if you are wise and do as I say you will learn to enjoy it.’

  Then she told me what my husband might expect from me.

  ‘Don’t be afraid,’ she said, her eyes twinkling. ‘Most husbands wish their wives to enjoy what passes between them in the marriage bed.’

  She explained how I could increase my husband’s pleasure and what I should do to encourage his attentions.

  ‘Old men do not have the energy of those boys who strut around making eyes at you girls,’ she said. ‘But they think of themselves as potent. You must never let your husband suspect you find his attentions lacking in any respect. You are his wife and it is your duty to make yourself available in such a way that desire will rise in him like water flowing from a spring. Do you understand? If he has no desire for you it is not his fault but yours. This Englishman - how long has he been without a wife?’

  ‘Nine years I believe.’

  ‘Let us hope he has amused himself with other women in the meantime.’

  My thoughts must have shown on my face for she said, ‘Oh don’t look like that. Such women have their uses even for the most amorous of wives. But with a willing little creature like you in his bed I doubt your husband will have the energy let alone the inclination to look elsewhere.’

  She then detailed the ruses a clever young woman might use to foster appetite in an older man who had long since lost interest in bed-sport. She talked of love potions which might aid desire and words I might whisper in his ear. This was not what I had expected of marriage and I was beginning to wish I didn’t have to travel to England to marry their king.

  ‘I know you girls gossip about men,’ she said, smiling. ‘Your friends will have told you stories. Some will be true, others will not, and you won’t know which is which for you’re a maid. But you can ask me. You can ask me anything and I will answer you honestly.’

  I didn’t like to say I never talked to the others about such matters. I knew Blanche did. She giggled in corners with the older girls, eyeing the young men in Philip’s household, and I’d seen her in the dairy at Vincennes, gossiping and sniggering with the milkmaids.

  ‘Will he like me?’ I blurted out.

  ‘Why would he not like you?’ she said kindly. ‘You are young, you are kind and you are willing.’

  ‘Soft, yielding and agreeable,’ I said dolefully. ‘Like a goosefeather pillow.’

  ‘What could be nicer for a husband when he goes to his bed than a soft, yielding and agreeable wife? Don’t despise your good qualities.’

  ‘But I want to be beautiful,’ I cried. ‘I do so want to be beautiful.’

  ‘But you are,’ she said, smiling. ‘You are beautiful. You are thinking only of the outer shell, what you see when you look at your reflection. But look within and what do you find? A young woman of immense beauty of soul, someone who is kind and loving. It is not what is on the outside which makes a good wife but what is within. And a clever husband knows the difference.’

  Before she departed she took my hands in hers, turning them over to look at my small white palms. She sighed deeply and kissed me on both cheeks.

  ‘There, there, it is all done now. I shall not see you again. My face is not welcome here. There are too many who wish to forget me.’ She gave a deep throaty laugh. ‘Remember what I have told you and may God grant you a happy marriage and a clutch of little ones to brighten your old age. For a woman, a life without children is indeed bleak, as I know only too well.’

  With that, she eased herself out of the door, shutting it quietly behind her. I sat and thought about what she’d said. I didn’t know which frightened me more - that my husband might ravish me before he’d taken off his boots in his haste to prove himself a man, or that I would have to use one of the devices she’d described in order to stimulate his desire. Whatever happened I knew he would be disappointed and quite unable to see inside to the beautiful part of me.

  ‘Did that old hag come and talk to you?’ said Blanche as we went down to the hall for supper.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘She came to me, too,’ said my sister, tossing her head so that her golden hair rippled in gleaming waves. ‘I told her I knew everything there was to know about pleasing men and it was pointless her trying to instruct me on matters about which I clearly knew more about than she did.’

  ‘Oh Blanche,’ I said. ‘How rude of you. Have y
ou no manners at all?’

  ‘You know who she is?’ said my sister, turning on the stair.

  ‘No.’

  ‘She is a woman who sleeps with other women’s husbands. Although I cannot imagine anyone wishing to bed with her, can you?’ Blanche wrinkled up her nose in disgust. ‘She came from Brabant as one of our mother’s women and married a nobody. When he died she turned her talents to whoring. One of the girls told me she was the most expensive whore in Paris and there was hardly a husband in the city not seen with her on his arm.’

  ‘I thought she was a midwife,’ I said stupidly.

  ‘Oh Marguerite,’ laughed my sister. ‘How will you manage without me? You are such an innocent.’

  I wept all the way to Senlis. I told myself I would be brave but as our cavalcade clattered under the wall of the Châtelet and set off along the Grand Rue towards the north, I looked back and, at the sight of Philip’s palace with its pointed rooftops and fluttering flags, I began to cry.

  The women my mother had chosen to accompany me to my new life chattered gaily. None of them seemed to care about what we were leaving behind. It wasn’t just the sights: the houses we knew, the churches where we worshipped and the turns in the road which we’d passed so often. It was the smells and the sounds of a life which would vanish forever. The pine-scented winter fires at Vincennes, my mother’s musky perfume and the flowery fragrance of my sister’s hair which reminded me of springtime in Clermont. And the accustomed ritual of bells, the rumble of carts coming through the gates at daybreak, the calling of men and women harvesting wheat in the blazing sunshine, and the shrieks of little children as they tumbled in the dust.

  All these would soon be memories.

  It took us two long weeks to cross the plains of Picardie and by the time we reached Boulogne I was almost weeping with tiredness. We partook of a final family meal. Philip spoke at length of his hopes for my influence on my English husband, the archbishop gave me his blessing and I said farewell to my many friends who would not be accompanying me. This was my last night. Tomorrow I would set out across the sea to a new life.

  Now Blanche and I were alone in our tiny cramped chamber and there was nothing left to say. Everything had been said: all the promises, all the sorrows, all the words which would soon be lost forever. We held hands and looked helplessly at each other.

  Tomorrow our paths would diverge and we might never see each other again. I would be on the other side of the Narrow Sea, the wife of an elderly man, living amongst people I didn’t know. And before a year was out, Blanche would leave for Vienna and the high mountains of Austria, married into a family about whom everyone avoided saying too much. I wanted to be a good wife and I wanted Blanche to be happy, but I feared we might both be disappointed.

  It was getting dark and the shadows were gathering when we heard a soft knock at our door. My mother wished to see me. I took a candle and ran quickly up the stairs to her chamber. She was sitting in her favourite travelling chair, her chin cupped in her hand. She patted the stool beside her and told me to sit.

  ‘Well, my dear child,’ she said. ‘This day has come at last. Tomorrow we shall part and soon you will be a wife and a queen, but for tonight, for the last time, you will be my daughter, my dear one, my little Marguerite.’

  ‘Oh, maman,’ I said, tears beginning to gather at the back of my eyes. ‘I shall miss you.’

  ‘No you won’t,’ said my mother with a rueful smile. ‘You will be far too busy making your new life and that is what I wish for you. I didn’t ask you here for us to be unhappy. There is something I need to tell you which concerns your marriage and I want you to pay attention to what I am going to say.

  I nodded my head and listened carefully.

  ‘You are going to marry a man who has loved before and I would not want you to be as unprepared as I was.’

  She paused, purposefully fingering the rings on her left hand and I wondered what it was that was so important.

  ‘When my brother told me I was to marry your father, I was overjoyed. I was twenty-one years old and proud to have been chosen. Brabant was not the wealthiest or most powerful of France’s neighbours and your father might well have looked elsewhere for a new queen. On my wedding day I held my head high and enjoyed the attention. What young woman would not?’

  I smiled. My mother was a woman who liked being at the centre of things. She disliked the way Philip never consulted her or sought her opinion. Only once had I known him seek her help and that had ended in such a furious row that he had never asked again.

  But my mother hadn’t finished with her story. ‘My women escorted me to the royal bedchamber, scented and oiled and ready for my husband’s delight. He arrived with his men and the jokes became bawdy which, as you can imagine, made me uncomfortable. Finally prayers were said, our union was blessed, and the curtains were drawn. My new husband and I were alone. And then, when I might have expected a tender embrace – there was nothing.’

  I blushed in embarrassment. This was my mother’s wedding night. This was a private matter.

  ‘What you must understand about your father, Marguerite, is that he was an unhappy man. He had disappointed his parents and lost his first wife, the only person he believed who had truly loved him. He didn’t want to marry again but he was the king and it was necessary. I had a little understanding of what went on in the marriage bed as my sister-in-law had told me what to expect. But nothing had prepared me for this awful hostile silence. I hardly dared to breathe.’

  A flush of pink spread across my mother’s high cheekbones and her voice became even quieter as she revealed the secrets of that night all those years ago.

  ‘He kept the clothes she had worn. They were in one of his chests, carefully layered with rosemary and lavender to protect them from the moth. There was a special gown, one she had often worn to please him, a beautiful dark red silk embroidered with silver thread and stitched with tiny pearls. That night he made me put it on. I knew immediately it was hers. I could smell her scent within the folds. When he lay with me, he whispered her name over and over again into my hair as he made me his wife and when he had finished he opened his eyes and wept because it was me he held in his arms and not her.’

  My mother paused.

  ‘You see, my dear, there were not just two of us in our marriage, there were three. She was there in his mind, in his eyes and in his heart. She consumed him entirely and he wanted nobody else. How do you think I felt to be so humiliated that he could only take me by pretending I was her?’

  My heart was full of compassion for the hurt she had suffered at the hands of my father and I wanted to weep.

  ‘If it had been a secret between the two of us, I could have borne the shame, but my humiliation was to be greater than that. Other than in my bed, he ignored me. Then he sent away my women, the ones I had brought from home, leaving me friendless. His mother had no kind words to say and found ample opportunity to show her dislike of me. I found myself shunned, even by his children. I hope you will never know how it is to feel so alone. I thought to tell my brother but what could I have said?’

  She looked at me and I saw her eyes were clear. Her weeping had been done a long time ago and there were no tears left to shed.

  I had never known my father and didn’t know what to say.

  ‘Do you know what I see when I look at Philip?’ she said. ‘Beyond the powerful king and the man who is Madame Jeanne’s husband, I see an angry small boy. When I knelt down that first day to greet my husband’s children, he looked at me with his mother’s eyes and said, “My father doesn’t want you here and neither do I.” Then, he spat at me. I remember my shock and the wetness of the spittle running down my face.’

  I put my arms around her, something I hadn’t done since I was a little girl, and laid my cheek against hers. With an intuition I didn’t know I possessed, I knew how much it had cost her to tell me h
er secret.

  ‘I love you, maman,’ I said quietly. ‘I love you.’

  2

  September 1299

  ‘Dover!’ announced the captain of our ship with pride. ‘And in record time, thanks be.’

  I looked curiously at the little square harbour with its sheer white cliffs and felt a rush of relief at having arrived safely. There was an imposing castle set high on the eastern ridge and some low wooden houses strung out beside the quay. Leaning against a wall, quite distinct from the fishermen and merchants busy with nets and barrels and bundles of goods, were a group of richly dressed men. I stared hard but couldn’t see anyone who might resemble my future husband so I presumed he wasn’t there. Perhaps it was just as well because my women said I looked windswept and whey-faced from the journeying.

  Several ships from our little flotilla had already arrived and I spied my brother standing on the quayside. By the time the drum stopped beating and our barge glided to a halt by the harbour wall Louis was holding out his hand, ready to assist me up the steps. As I placed my unsteady feet on English soil for the first time, trumpets blared loudly. Startled, I looked round to see where Philip was, then realised the fanfares were for me. I was being welcomed to England by a cheering crowd and a line of liveried men with gleaming instruments.

  The gathering of people on the quayside swelled to a multitude and I couldn’t tell one person from the other. These were the English, my new fellow countrymen. At the front of the crowd were four men, two older and two younger, the youngest no more than a boy. He may have been tall and good-looking but his narrow shoulders and beardless chin betrayed his youth. He couldn’t have been more than fifteen. After a brief introduction Louis came to escort me forward.

  ‘Lord Edward, I would like to present to you the Lady Marguerite, sister of Philip, by the grace of God, king of France, king of Navarre and count of Champagne. Sister, this is Lord Edward of Caernarfon.’