The Sister Queens

by Sophie Perinot

  M

  MARGUERITE

  MAY 1246

  MELUN, FRANCE

  “If only I could forgo this investiture,” I say, wincing slightly as Marie crosses my plaited hair at the back of my head with more vigor than usual.

  Yolande hands Marie a crespine amply studded with jewels, then gives me a wicked smile and says, “Would you miss the Count d’Anjou kneeling before you and the king to pay homage for Anjou and Maine?”

  “No indeed, Lady Dreux, that will be the most pleasant moment of the affair. You well know I will delight in seeing my brother on his knees. If only we could devise a method of keeping him there.”

  Yolande and my ladies laugh. I join them, but inside I am seething. To see my detested brother-in-law Charles knighted—made Lord of Vendôme, and Vicomte de Laval and de Mayenne—and to celebrate him is like putting salt in a wound, particularly as the titles are belated wedding presents. And to see my sister Beatrice is like poison. Her marriage cost me dearly, and I do not think of my lost ten-thousand-marks dowry, monies that the new Count and Countess of Provence have made clear they have no intention of paying. No, I have forfeited something far more precious than silver. Because of Beatrice, I have lost Eleanor. I have not had a letter from her in four months.

  I cannot blame Eleanor; I know how it looks. I have written reams. Written until my hand cramped, trying to explain that my personal claims in Provence have been set aside along with hers; that I am not to blame for the reports we receive—reports of Charles stealing castles and diverting fees that are rightfully property of our mother. These reports sicken me. But I am sure that all Eleanor sees and hears is that France will have Provence and that the Capets reach their grasping hands into Midi.

  I watch with satisfaction in my mirror as my crown is placed on my head, and I hold out my hands so that Yolande can slide on my most impressive rings. Unlike Eleanor, I am not known for extravagant habits of dress, but a lesson must be taught. I will use the occasion of her husband’s knighting to show Beatrice her place, not only in the hierarchy of the French royal family but in my heart. I will use this gathering in Charles’s honor to repudiate my sister.

  After the ceremony I sit beside the king in a hall full to overflowing with the most important nobles in France. Doubtless our guests are looking forward to the first of a week’s worth of lavish banquets and entertainments. Louis is distracted, talking with the Count of Sarrebruck about crusade preparations. I can never see the count without thinking of his cousin, the Sieur de Joinville. There is something about the mouth of the first that reminds me of the second. But today I am in no mood to be pleasantly preoccupied.

  Turning to Beatrice, under cover of all the noise and motion I say, “Well, Countess, here is pomp enough to satisfy even the insatiable Count d’Anjou. And an opportune moment for him to be out of Provence as well—I hear that he is not very popular there.”

  Beatrice looks up at me with vicious eyes. She is fuming over the fact that the dais on which we sit was deliberately constructed so that she sits considerably below me, and below Blanche of Castile. I had surprisingly little trouble suggesting this arrangement to the dragon. She loves both her sons; like me, however, she is wise enough to see that Charles will take every opportunity to infringe on Louis’s rights and good humor. “It is only those rebellious tradesmen in Marseilles. Your Majesty knows well they are content with no one.”

  “Only Marseilles? How then can you explain the expulsion of His Holiness the Pope’s nuncios at Arles and Avignon? Uncle Philippe wrote to say that the Holy Father was not leastwise pleased.”

  Beatrice colors. She knows I am needling her, but what can she do? My tone is pleasant and I am queen.

  “Well, never mind,” I continue. “All men cannot have my husband’s facility for ruling. Louis is beloved wherever he goes. How fortunate that Charles will never be a king, given his deficits.”

  I can actually see Beatrice’s teeth grinding. How I wish the noise of the crowd were a little lower so I could hear them.

  Tired of my company, Beatrice rises and moves into the crowd, seeking the arm of her swaggering husband. No matter. My dear Yolande approaches, shepherding the new wife of Hugh of Châtillon, Count of Saint-Pol. Rising to greet them, a distinction I did not show my sister when she came to take her seat earlier, I am all smiles. I have a message to send in the course of these events. The little countess will be the first of my couriers, but I will employ as many as necessary, and speak often and loudly until my words reach distant shores; until they reach my sister the Queen of England.

  Having accepted the ladies’ reverence, I draw their arms through mine as if the countess had the same claim on my friendship as Yolande. “I sat too long at this morning’s ceremony,” I say. “Let us walk awhile.”

  Saint-Pol’s wife is the daughter of the Count of Guines, a vassal of my uncle Thomas, Count of Flanders, and master of territory very close to the English Channel. I dearly hope she repeats to her father all that she sees of my treatment of Beatrice over the next days, and all that she hears. “Countess,” I address the girl with all the solicitude I can muster, “His Majesty is so pleased that your husband has taken the cross, and I am happy you will be part of my collection of ladies when we set sail for the Holy Land.” In truth I have heard she is the last sort of woman I would wish to spend time with—a childish, petty thing with a talent for gossip. Luckily she is also precisely the sort of girl whose head is easily turned by royal attention.

  “Your Majesty is so kind,” she simpers, positively glowing and glancing about to see who is close enough to notice us walking arm in arm.

  “Not at all. Are you feeling settled at Blois? It is difficult to marry so far away from one’s relations as I well remember. For many years I felt the absence of my family keenly.” I hold my breath, wondering if she will say what I wish her to. But, of course, the comment is so very obvious, surely it must come.

  “It must be a great pleasure for Your Majesty to have your sister the Countess of Provence married to the Count d’Anjou, for now you will have her with you often.”

  Leaning in, I lower my voice as if taking the countess into my confidence. “Not at all,” I reply. “The Countess of Provence is not the companion I would have chosen. I much prefer my English relations.”

  Moments after she leaves me, I glimpse the countess across the room, deep in conversation with several other ladies of rank. When I see their eyes turn in unison to Beatrice, I know that rumors of my denouncement of her will be spread throughout the court before the sun sets.

  CHAPTER 19

  My dear Eleanor,

  I have scorned Beatrice publicly and treat her with so little kindness or respect that I might be reasonably mistaken for my husband’s mother, and yet you will not be placated. How long, Eleanor, can you remain angry with me? Surely you of all people know how little sway I have over events in the court of France. I was not the author of our sister’s marriage, nor am I the benefactor of it.…

  Your sister,

  M

  ELEANOR

  JUNE 1246

  BEAULIEU ABBEY, ENGLAND

  My goodness, the bishop of Winchester drones on. The new abbey buildings are impressive, and they have cost Henry a good deal of money, but is it really necessary for his lordship to comment on the laying of every stone? Glancing past Sanchia at the Earl Richard, I wonder if his long looks are, like mine, induced by the endless speeches or by the fact that his first wife is buried not ten yards away just before the altar? Glancing to my other side, I see that Edward’s eyelids are drooping. I ought to give him a stern look or nudge him, but I haven’t the heart. After all, if I were only seven, I would be asleep already. I reach out a hand to settle him comfortably against me and find his skin touched with fire.

  Fever! I have no more time to waste on the bishop, and no thought for what is appropriate or polite. Rising, I lift the prince, wrapping his legs around my hips. His little arms naturally rise and clasp round my
neck, but his head lolls back frighteningly and his eyes are unfocused as they seek my face. Henry gives a puzzled look as I start down the long aisle out of the church.

  Outside, I glance about in panic and then realize that faithful Willelma has followed me. “Get the physician!”

  “Which one?”

  “All of them.”

  Responding to the urgency in my voice, she leaves at a run. I still have no idea where to go. Everyone is at the dedication.

  “Mama,” Edward whimpers. Panic rises in me, pressing my chest and closing my gullet. And then Henry is there behind me.

  “Eleanor?”

  “He’s burning with fever.” I do not mean to shriek, but my voice sounds unnaturally high as it escapes my throat.

  Henry reaches out a hand to Edward’s head, then draws it back as if burned. Wordlessly he takes the prince from me and begins to stride toward the living quarters of the Cistercians. I have to run to keep up. And all the time I can hear Henry murmuring reassuringly to Edward, talking about his favorite dog, the goshawk he got for his birthday, and how they will go hunting soon.

  We install Edward in the abbot’s room. He is bled, but the fever shows no sign of abating. Physicians buzz around him like bees as I sit at his bedside holding his little hand. A few yards away the prior buzzes as well, like an angry hornet. My jaw clenches as I look at him. He is talking to Henry.

  “I understand, Your Majesty, the queen’s desires to stay with Lord Edward. Her Majesty’s feelings are becomingly maternal. But there are the rules of our order to consider. We cannot appropriately house women underneath our roof.”

  “Cannot or will not?” Henry’s voice is as cold as my Edward’s cheeks are hot.

  “Please, Your Majesty. I assure you the prince will be cared for day and night with the utmost skill until such time as he is well enough to be moved.”

  “Listen to me.” I am on my feet and striding toward the prior. “His Majesty’s father built this abbey, and His Majesty can take it down.” The prior’s eyes open wide and his jaw drops. “And that is what will happen if another word is said about my leaving—down it will come, stone by stone, and I will help with my own hands.”

  “Your Majesty!” The stunned cleric turns to my husband for relief.

  “Mansel!” Our Lord Chancellor separates himself from a small knot of counselors standing near the door in response to Henry’s summons. “Her Majesty will be staying with our son. Please make the necessary arrangements.”

  The prior sputters like a drowning man pulled from a river. Henry turns to him, raising his eyebrows slightly as if to invite further challenge, and says with great deliberateness, “Stone by stone.”

  “WHY DOES THE FEVER NOT break?”

  “Your Majesty, we are doing all that we can.” It is the fifth day since Edward was taken ill, and the prince’s physician’s eyes are bloodshot with lack of sleep.

  All that you can is not enough, I think furiously. I know I am being unfair. The prince’s physician, the king’s physician, my own Peter de Alpibus, and indeed the abbey’s simpler are all doing their best. They try remedy after remedy, but my Edward continues to burn, by turns shaking and delirious, and then stuporous. I never leave him, sleeping on the floor beside his bed, much to the distress of everyone but myself. How could I sleep elsewhere? At least as things are, when I wake in panic, desperately listening for the sound of his breath, I have only to reach out a hand to find him and reassure myself that he lives still.

  Turning to the king’s physician I say, “I wish you to list for me every herb and tonic you have tried thus far.” Listening to his litany, I realize that most of the English remedies are unfamiliar. The medicines of my own childhood are missing.

  “Have you no borage?” I ask. Henry’s physician looks back at me blankly. “Starflower?” Perhaps it is known only by its common name here.

  “Your Majesty, I am sorry, but I am not familiar with such a plant.”

  Turning from the doctor, I put my hands to my face in pure exasperation. I must admit that I myself have never seen the starflower growing on these shores. If only we were in Provence, where it grows thick this time of year. I would make a tea of its petals and leaves. Nothing is better for fever.

  Henry slips into the room. He looks as wild as I feel, with dark circles under his eyes and hair unkempt. He has every monk not otherwise engaged in the day’s business praying for Edward. But, like me, I know he feels it is not enough. Both of us would do more, but there is nothing to be done.

  “Eleanor, you must get some air. You begin to look ill yourself.”

  I nearly laugh despite the horror of our situation. Being lectured on my appearance by Henry at the present moment has a touch of the ridiculous about it. “Henry, I am fine.”

  “You are not fine.”

  “No.”

  “Nor am I.” He rests a hand on my cheek for a moment.

  Henry has come to sit with his son, but I do not rise. It is not necessary. Henry always sits on the bed itself, as close as he can to Edward. His physician is not pleased by the practice. He worries the fever is catching. But Henry does not care. He takes the basin from a monk who has been laying compresses on Edward’s forehead. “I will do it,” he says firmly.

  “Do you know what I saw in the field outside the gates this morning?” Henry begins speaking softly to Edward. The prince’s little eyes pop open at the sound of his father’s voice and search, with a painful fogginess, for his father’s face.

  I feel damp upon my cheek and am surprised when my curious fingers find a tear. I must be crying. But just as Edward’s eyes look empty, I feel empty—not calm and removed, but hollow in a way that aches desperately. Dear God, please do not take my little Edward. He is such a beautiful thing, long limbed, fair, bright. I realize he seems uncommonly good for this life, but even if he would make a perfect angel, please, please leave him to his father and me.

  Children die. I know it. But until this moment I never felt it. My own mother lost two sons before Marguerite was born. Marguerite herself has lost a child, little Princess Blanche. Blanche was only a year younger than Edward. What would my sister say to me now in my terror? Would she hold me in her arms as she did when as a girl I woke her from a sound sleep to tell her of my nightmares? No, it will not do to dwell on Marguerite; there is no comfort to be found in that quarter. In keeping with my declaration to Henry, I do not write to my sister. And the letters she sends me, offering excuses, do not move me. She will not admit that she plotted against me, instead insisting that we are equally robbed by our sister Beatrice’s marriage. Her stunning lack of contrition rankles me. Even recent rumors of a public declaration that she prefers me to the Countess of Provence leave me unmoved.

  I reach out my hand and touch Henry’s sleeve to get his attention. Then I hand him a cup so he can offer Edward a drink.

  “I cannot comprehend why none of the usual medicines induce sweating.” The prince’s physician stands at the foot of the bed, shaking his head.

  Willelma lays her hand on mine. When I turn, her wise eyes regard me with urgent meaning. It is clear that the physician’s last statement triggered some important thought or memory. “The sweating tea!” she exclaims.

  And at once I feel a fool for not thinking of this remedy from my homeland myself. “Do you know how it is made?”

  “Plan segur, who do you think brewed it for you when you were a child?”

  I scramble to my feet, eager to be in motion now that there is something useful to be done. I am in the alley along the cloister in an instant with Willelma behind me. Monks flee before us, but I have no patience for their delicate sensibilities. “You”—I stop a wispy young man with my voice—“where are the kitchen gardens?”

  “Good Heavens,” I exclaim to Willelma when we arrive. The herb garden is prodigiously large. As we search frantically in the late-afternoon sun, the monks working in a nearby vegetable patch scuttle away like beetles. Willelma secures a basket from one as
he goes. The catswort and mint are quickly found. We are careful to keep them apart as we pick, lest their similarly shaped toothed leaves lead to confusion. The egrimoyne, however, is nowhere in evidence. I try not to panic. The heat and the pollen-laden air are beginning to make my breath labored. I concentrate on breathing slowly. At last I spot the characteristic yellow flowers along a low stone wall at the garden’s rear. We go straight to the kitchens with our supplies, but no sooner do we cross the threshold than our path is blocked by a round monk with more chins than he has folds in his cowl. His hands are tucked under the front flap of his long sleeveless apron and remain there even as he makes a smooth bow.

  “Your Majesty, with respect, this is no place for you.”

  “And you are?”

  “Brother Geoffrey de Middleton, cellarer of the abbey.”

  “With respect, Brother de Middleton, Lady d’Attalens and I have medicine to prepare. Where else do you suggest we find knife, pot, water, and fire to brew it?”

  “Confide the recipe to me and I will see it prepared.”

  “You are a very brave man. If the tonic is not efficacious, are you willing to be responsible for its failure? Even with the life of the heir to the throne at stake?”

  De Middleton’s chubby face colors. As I suspected, he is not a brave man, merely an officious one. “This way,” he says, leading us to a scrubbed wooden worktable. “Our kitchener, Brother Gilbert, will get you whatever tools you need.”

  With the officious cellarer out of our way, it does not take long for us to prepare the herbs and steep the tea. I am soon back in Edward’s chamber, sitting on his bed. I pull my son onto my lap, supporting his head and shoulders against my breast. Willelma hands me a cup filled with our handiwork.

  “Edward,” I say, dipping my head to whisper in his ear, “Mama has something for you. Something to make you feel better.” I put the cup to his lips and slowly tip some of the liquid into his mouth, praying that he will swallow. He does! Willelma and I smile at each other in a moment of intense satisfaction. When the cup is empty, I relax against the wall at the head of the bed, with Edward leaning against me. Henry, sitting on my customary stool, takes my hand. We sit in silence. The sun is setting and I am bone tired.