The Sister Queens

by Sophie Perinot

  Your loving sister,

  Eleanor

  MARGUERITE

  SPRING 1250

  DAMIETTA, EGYPT

  I can barely rise from my bed in the morning. My ladies think it is because I am so great with child. Matilda chides me for not beginning my confinement, for still climbing to the battlements every day, looking in the direction of the river and hoping for the sight of Louis’s messenger, of Louis’s colors.

  But it is neither the babe inside me nor “too much exertion” that causes my malaise. I am no fool. I have had no word from the king in nearly four months. No word from Jean. Something terrible has happened. And the weight of not knowing how terrible bends me nearly to my breaking point. For all I know, both men are dead and all my children are fatherless. Is it any wonder then that I am weary?

  Leaning on the stone in front of me, surrounded by archers, flanked by a concerned Marie and my sister, I look at the river winding into the distance and see a sinuous and treacherous serpent. Somewhere along its length between myself and the French army, the Saracens must command it. I wonder what happens to the supply barges I send. What do the men eat if provisions are not getting through? Then I am seized with terror almost to the point of panic at the unwelcome thought that dead men need no nourishment. I want to scream, but if I become hysterical, what and who is to hold my court of women or the larger city together? Only alone, in the deep watches of the night, when like a child I demand every candle be lit to drive out the unseen monsters of the dark, do I cover my face with a pillow and scream until my throat is raw.

  Descending from the tower, I find my sisters-in-law and the other noble wives waiting in utter idleness in my chambers. They no longer look up hopefully at my return, nor does every knock at my door as each long day unwinds cause them to start in hopes of a royal messenger. We have become old and broken women, even as the air is filled with the sounds and smells of spring. The only soul oblivious to our torture, I think as I find my seat, is Beatrice’s little daughter lying in her cradle. She waves her tiny fists in the air as Matilda, now beginning to show with child herself, rocks the cot slowly with her foot.

  I cannot write to Jean. If I could, if I could pour out all my worry, all my thoughts of him in his absence, how the picture of the pink birds of our afternoon at Akrotiri comes to me at unexpected intervals catching me off guard, what sweet relief it would be. But such candor in writing would be misplaced, even under extremis. Thank God I can write to Eleanor. I call for my escritoire and bury myself in the letter I started yesterday.

  When the door opens, I do not look up. It is Marie’s exclamation, “Your Grace!” that captures my attention.

  The Duke of Burgundy stands on the threshold, smiling. Smiling!

  “Your Majesty, soldiers in the south tower believe they have espied our troops.”

  I am on my feet in an instant, large as I am. “Show me.”

  I take the duke’s arm and make the climb with all my ladies, babbling like excited children, trailing behind me. When we reach the top of the tower, soldiers and archers make way.

  “You see, Your Majesty, coming along the right bank of the river.” The duke points out over the landscape to guide my gaze.

  The sun is just past its apex overhead, so there is nothing to hamper our view save the distortion created by distance and heat rising off the ground and water in waves. I can clearly see Louis’s standard and a number of others that I recognize.

  “God be praised, God be praised,” Matilda says with a sob from behind me. She continues to repeat the phrase over and over as the ladies embrace one another, wild with joy. I alone stand unmoving. I will know no relief until it is clear who has returned. The number appears significant, but not as many as left us. And where are the litters? Surely if Louis was still among the living he would never abandon the wounded; yet I see not a single man carried or even assisted among those who march ever nearer.

  “Stop!” I command sharply, and the celebration of my women abruptly ends.

  “What is it?” my sister-in-law Jeanne asks, moving beside me and laying her hand on my arm in concern.

  “Your Grace, something is wrong, I sense it,” I say, looking at the duke.

  The duke stares back at me as if I were an imbecile or a small child to be indulged. “What could be wrong, Your Majesty?”

  “The queen is right,” replies a nearby guard, shading his eyes with his hand. “Look at their clothing.”

  The duke and I peer out again. The first ranks of men are much closer now, and though they wear the tunics of French knights and carry their shields, they have the swarthy complexions of Saracens and the footwear as well.

  “Dear God, they are infidels.” The duke’s voice is quiet, yet its message, so horribly unwelcome, carries to all the ladies in my party. As if with one voice, a great wail rises up to replace the laughter and embraces of a moment ago.

  I feel my legs giving way beneath me and clutch the wall to keep from falling. A Saracen bears the oriflamme of France. Louis has been defeated, that is sure, but where is he? Where are my brothers-in-law? Surely all of Louis’s army cannot be dead. Jean cannot be dead!

  “Send to all the gates of the city,” the duke barks to a nearby knight, “that none may be deceived by these men and grant them entrance. Your Majesty, I must get you and the ladies inside before their archers reach the edge of their range.”

  I know he is right; yet even as I let him lead me back down the stairs I wonder if the instant death provided by an arrow might not be a blessing.

  “Find out all you can,” I say, “then come to me and we will decide what is best to be done.”

  “PRISONER?” I AM SEATED BESIDE a window, out of sight of those on the plain between the city and the river but where, even with an imperfect view, I can glimpse the tents of the enemy as they go up.

  “That is the message from Sultan Turan-Shah.” The Duke of Burgundy looks grim, but not panicked. There is something in that anyway. Nearly everyone else seems to be. “He warns us to lay down our arms and retreat to our ships or risk being taken as His Majesty was. Or worse.”

  “Do you think he speaks true?” Both the duke and I wonder about this new sultan. We wonder what happened to Sultan Ayyüb. If he was killed in battle, then the victory of the Saracens may not have been overwhelming.

  “Who can say with an infidel, Your Majesty.” The Duke shrugs and opens his hands expansively.

  “I agree,” I reply, nodding. “All that the sultan’s message tells us is that he considers it to his advantage that we believe His Majesty lives.” I shift in my seat, momentarily distracted by the sound of weeping from somewhere nearby. “Can we defeat his forces?”

  “Not with five hundred knights, Your Majesty.” The duke lowers his eyes as if embarrassed by this fact.

  “They are so many, the Saracens?”

  “They continue to arrive even now.”

  “Can we hold the city?”

  The duke looks up again, his eyes narrowed and his brow furrowed. He clearly did not anticipate my desire to stand our ground. “Your Majesty?”

  “Can we hold the city?” I repeat slowly and distinctly.

  “I believe we can.”

  And suddenly I feel it, that distinctive tightening in my abdomen. Oh God, I think, must it be now? I shove all thoughts of childbirth away, and, staring directly into the duke’s eyes, I say, “Then hold it. Hold it as if it were the most important thing you have ever possessed, because if in fact the king lives, it may be.”

  The duke bows and starts for the door. As he reaches it, a second pain spurs me to make a request. “Your Grace, I would be pleased if you would send me one of the most venerable of the knights under your command. He need not be young, but he need be a preudomme who knows his duty to his queen. This man I shall make my personal guard.”

  As soon as he is gone, I call Marie and tell her to make my chamber ready, not for confinement but for birth. “Do not shutter the windows,” I say. I mus
t know what goes on in the city and without its walls or I will go mad with terror. “And let no one but my ladies know that my time has come.”

  Those who have attended me through delivery before gather, their eyes red and their faces tear-streaked. I walk about my chamber, stopping to lean on a chair or the bed as the pains take me. When the knight sent by the Duke of Burgundy arrives, Marie shepherds him in. He has lived more than sixty years if he has lived one, but he has kindly eyes and a strong chin. I nod my head to acknowledge his bow.

  “You see, good Sieur, that your queen has great need of you at present. I labor now to bring forth a prince or princess of France. I have no choice in the matter, though the timing be ill; God wills it should be so. Yet things are so uncertain that even as I bring forth this new life, the Saracens may breach the city walls and storm this place. I command you that should that happen, you must draw your sword and have it at the ready. Delay as long as you can to give my child a chance to be born and spirited away, but under no circumstances let me be taken. At the first sign that the infidels have entered this palace, you must strike off my head with a single blow.”

  Matilda gasps and, pressing her fist against her mouth, begins to sob.

  The knight’s face, however, remains strong. “I shall strike without hesitation, Your Majesty. You have my word. Never would I see a queen of mine subjected to the hands and whims of an infidel.”

  Another pain takes me, stronger than those before it, causing me to cling to the post of my bed. When it passes I say, “Marie, place a chair for this good gentleman. It is time.”

  I do my best to labor in silence. Had anyone told me such was possible, I would have denied it, but my fear is stronger than my pain and my sense of duty is stronger than both. Louis may be dead. Jean may be dead. I may, therefore, wish I were dead. But I am not dead and I am Queen of France. The men and women brought to Egypt by my husband who live still, whether within the walls of this city or captive God knows where, need me to be a queen first and a woman second. So, when the pain takes hold of me, I bite my lip till I draw blood, I moan low and long, but I do not scream. Somewhere in the agony of it all there is a loud knock on the door of the room beyond. Marie departs and returns with the Duke of Burgundy. When he sees me, knees drawn up, straining, he starts and looks away.

  “He insisted on speaking to you,” Marie says in a low voice as the pain subsides and I relax back onto my pillows.

  “It is nothing, Your Majesty,” the duke stammers, without turning his head in my direction. “It can wait.”

  “No,” I gasp. I hold up my hand to bid him to wait, then push through another dreadful pain.

  “I can see the head,” the midwife declares with satisfaction.

  “Be quick,” I command the duke. I am nearly beyond listening thanks to the unbearable pressure in my loins, but I fight to keep my mind focused.

  “The Pisans and Genoese pack to depart.”

  Even in my present circumstances I recognize the serious nature of this threat. Without those men and their boats, the city will have no source of supply; nor will we have means of retreat. The ability to come and go by sea is a necessity.

  “Oh Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for me,” I moan. The pain is rising. I close my eyes against it and against the light of this impossibly cruel day, pushing with all my might. I know the babe is born before I hear it cry; I know by the blessed relief that descends the instant it is free of my body.

  “Praise God, our king has another son,” the midwife declares.

  A son! I have given Jean a son. And now I must find out what happened to him, to Louis. I must trade this city for them if they live. I must have Damietta; without it I have no hope.

  “Your Grace,” I say, eyes still closed so that I can see my own thoughts clearly, “I will speak with the leaders of these men—”

  “But Your Majesty—”

  “In one hour.”

  MY ROOM IS FULL FROM wall to wall. Either these men are curious to see a queen in her childbed or the number of those who lead equals that of those who follow. On the whole, they look uncertain, and that is a good thing for I would have them change their minds.

  “Gentlemen”—I glance round, trying to catch the eyes of as many as I can—“I understand that you think to depart. I beg you not to leave this city. We cannot hold it without you, and if we lose it, His Majesty and all those brave warriors taken captive with him will be lost as well.” I pause, expecting a response of some sort, but no one speaks. “If this does not move you,” I continue, “think of my ladies and of me, in no condition to even rise from my bed, mother of a babe not two hours old. What horrors shall be our fate if you desert us?”

  “Your Majesty,” a man in his prime with the skin of one who has been used to the sea speaks from the foot of my bed, “what choice have we? We have neither food nor the funds to buy it.”

  I do not know if they are truly hungry or merely greedy. I do not care. Gold and silver I have; more of it than I have men, that is sure. Louis showed me the many chests on our ship with pride. “And if I keep you at His Majesty’s expense, ordering all the food in the city to be purchased in my name?” The Duke of Burgundy standing just to my left looks stricken; I can see his knuckles whiten on the hand resting on the hilt of his sword. Likely he disagrees with my decision. I do not care.

  When the men are gone, persuaded to stay by my bribe, I call for my son. The midwife brings him in trailed by Marie. With them is a nurse I recognize as the same who suckles Lady Coucy’s daughter, who is now nearing her first birthday.

  My baby is quite marvelously perfect with an abundance of dark curly hair so similar to Jean’s that under other circumstances I might worry that others would notice. Presently, however, I have other cause for concern. “You must take him to be baptized at once,” I admonish Marie. “Ask Jeanne to stand as godmother and the Duke of Burgundy as godfather. Or, if the duke cannot be spared, ask whatever nobleman you can conveniently find, but on no account delay. There is more peril to threaten this prince than a mother need ordinarily fear.”

  Marie nods. I hand the child back to the midwife reluctantly. “Bring him back to me directly from the font,” I plead. Then turning to the nurse I add, “Though you may have the charge of him, I will suckle him myself. If I cannot know where his father is, I will keep the son as close at hand as I can.” Of course, the nurse thinks I mean His Majesty, as should Marie, though perhaps she is too clever to be fooled.

  “And the name, Your Majesty?”

  I hesitate. ’Twould be safest to name him after one of his uncles or, perhaps, my own father. But I cannot be wise. If, God forbid, one Jean has been lost to me, moldering somewhere in the desert sun or suffering at the hands of his Saracen captors, I must have another. “Jean Tristan,” I say, “and we will call him Tristan for he has been born into great sadness, and it is only by the grace of God that this prince, and indeed any of us, shall live to see happier times.”

  “A BARGE MOVES DOWN THE river, Your Majesty.” The Duke of Burgundy brings this news himself. “It is very large and appears to be loaded with yet more men.”

  We have held the city for three weeks, watching every day as towers and pavilions are erected outside its gates. One tower in particular fascinates me. It is taller than all the rest and, like the elaborate tent beside it, bears the standard of Sultan Turan-Shah. Sometimes when I go to our battlements late at night and peer out at the Saracens’ camp illuminated by hundreds of fires, I glimpse a shadow at this mighty tower’s top and wonder if I have seen the sultan and if he can see me.

  “I will have a look.” I hand the slumbering Jean—for whatever I have instructed others to call him, I think of my son by the name he shares with his father—to Matilda, and make my way to the battlements.

  “Do you see it?” His Grace points, and I do indeed, pulled along by at least one hundred oars. I cannot say why, but my eyes leave the river and scan the top of the great tower. I can see no one there, but if the towe
r is occupied, surely whoever stands at its apex is on its other side watching the river and the progress of the barge as I do. “Can such a conveyance hold enough men to tip the balance of the siege?”

  “We will count them as they unload,” the duke replies, evading the heart of my question.

  I am on the verge of turning to descend when I am stopped. My eyes, sweeping the infidels’ encampment with a parting glance, see something most unexpected—a column of dark black smoke rising beside the tower.

  “It burns!” I cry, returning to the wall.

  And sure enough, at the tower’s base I can see flames licking it greedily—flames stoked by dozens of men. I do not understand why they would destroy their own tower.

  “Mamlu¯ks,” the duke says, the tone of his voice betraying that he is as bewildered as I am. Then suddenly he gestures wildly. “My God!”

  A magnificently dressed man has emerged from the tower’s base preceded by two soldiers. He clears a group of armed men near the doorway, even as his two companions fall holding them back from him, and he sprints toward the river. A dozen Mamlu¯k warriors chase after him. There is nowhere for him to run. And he must know it, for at the river’s edge he turns to face those who pursue him. Without hesitation one among them knocks him to the ground. For a moment he is obscured from view by a mass of warriors. When they part, he lies motionless, limbs oddly askew, his splendid white and gold robes stained red with blood. I wonder who he is, or rather, was. Could it be the sultan himself lying lifeless in the dust?

  “And these are the men who hold the king,” I say, finding my voice once I am safe in the shadows of the tower stairway.

  SOMETHING OF GREAT IMPORTANCE WAS clearly begun by the death I witnessed on the riverbank. Seven days crawl by during which the infidels no longer seem to pay any attention to us. Their small forays toward the city wall by night to see if my archers sleep at their posts have stopped. The drums and horns, once sounded to frighten us, are silent. The barge remains moored in the great river without troops coming ashore. And all the time the corpse lies where it fell, scavenged by birds, but otherwise unattended.