The Sister Queens

by Sophie Perinot

  I spend a curiously large amount of time thinking about the dead Egyptian, not so much pondering who he was as wondering why no one mourns him. Surely he had a loyal friend? A devoted servant? A wife? Perhaps none of these felt as they should for him. Was this his fault? Was it theirs? These are not idle questions. For, after my initial relief that Louis and his army were not destroyed, I am finding it hard to worry for him as I should—or at least as the other wives worry for their husbands. I pray that the king is alive, and for his deliverance. But my words come from a sense of duty and a fear that if he is dead, my little Louis, too young by far to rule, will be destroyed by his uncles or dominated by his grandmother. When I try to muster tears for the man who is my husband, they do not come. It seems not enough fondness remains in my heart to weep for Louis, and the guilt for what I do not feel is oppressive.

  The eighth day after the tower burned is the Lord’s day. On my knees at Mass, I find myself unaccountably praying for the fallen man, infidel or no. When the service ends, my ladies stay where they are to offer yet more prayers for their missing husbands and our missing knights, but I rise. If God does not know my heart by now, another litany of its hopes will not help.

  The light in the courtyard is blinding after the dim of the chapel, so at first I sense rather than see that something extraordinary is going on—there is a sound of snorting horses and running feet—and then a group of noblemen becomes clear, crowding around a man on horseback. The rider’s face is down because he speaks to someone standing beside his mount. The Duke of Burgundy and several others, who must have exited the chapel just behind me, rush past, jostling me slightly as they go. The rider looks up, his face is as gaunt as that of a beggar in the street; yet I would know it anywhere—it is my Lord Geoffrey de Sergines! Lifting my skirt, I run to join those clustered around him. And while the others do not immediately notice me, de Sergines does. Climbing with difficulty from his horse, he staggers forward on unsteady legs to bow before me.

  “Your Majesty.”

  “My lord,” I say, taking him gently by the shoulders and helping him to straighten up, “have you come from the king?”

  “I have. I have been at His Majesty’s side since we were taken captive together. And I would not have left him now did I not think my commission might see him freed.”

  France still has a king and I a husband. The verifiable knowledge that Louis lives moves me unexpectedly. A feeling of great relief and thanksgiving surges through me. Yet it is imperfect. I must have news of more than Louis to wipe the final traces of dread from my heart.

  “Sir, we must get you out of the sun and off your feet.”

  “Lean on me.” The Duke of Burgundy slides Sir Geoffrey’s arm around his shoulder.

  We make our way painstakingly toward my apartment. By the time we reach it, the crowd following us is prodigious. I can see my ladies scattered throughout, no doubt drawn from the chapel by word of the knight’s arrival. Eager as all are for news of the king and the other captives, because theirs is a story of defeat, some of that news is doubtless bad and therefore best confined to the smallest possible number. I hold the door so Sir Geoffrey, still leaning on the duke, can pass, then slipping inside, pull it shut behind me. The duke settles de Sergines into a chair, and I pour out a goodly measure of wine for the gentleman, though judging by his looks, he would be better served by a meal.

  “In God’s name what happened?” The Duke of Burgundy’s voice is rough with emotion.

  “We lost.” The statement is so simple. “I could tell you how, where, and when, but all such a recitation would do at present is leave the king longer a prisoner.”

  I nod my head in understanding. “You have come with terms.”

  “Yes,” de Sergines says wistfully.

  “I will hear them, but first, pardon a woman’s weakness and tell me how many good knights have died.”

  “Better to ask how many live. The fighting took a fearsome toll, and our imprisonment carried off yet more. Your Majesty is, God be praised, not a widow, but among your ladies there will be many. The king’s brother the Count of Artois is dead. The Lords of Coucy, Orleans, Coublanc…”

  As his voice trails off, my thoughts fly to these men’s wives, clustered outside the door. Their fear will end not in relief but in desperate misery. Yet even as I grieve for them, a voice inside my head shouts, What of my Lord of Joinville? It is a question I cannot ask aloud, for Jean is neither husband nor kin to me. So I turn to a question I can ask. “What must be done to ransom those who still live?”

  “The surrender of this city and a payment of four hundred thousand livres has been agreed upon. Then His Majesty and the knights shall be freed.”

  “Four hundred thousand!” The duke’s eyes bulge like those of a hunting dog held too tight on its lead. “Your Majesty, such a sum is unconscionable. You must not pay it.”

  “Shall I tell the king when he is free that you did not think his life and the life of his fellows worth so much?”

  “That is unfair,” the duke says, blanching. “These are not Christian knights, Your Majesty! To hand over so great an amount to men of no integrity may be to throw it away.”

  It is my turn to be stung, for the duke is right. Whether the word of an infidel sultan should be trusted is a matter fairly open to debate. I turn to de Sergines. “How are the moneys to be paid? And how can we be sure that if we do pay them, we will not do so in vain?”

  “His Majesty and other gentlemen of rank will be released upon surrender of this city. They will be allowed to board ships brought into the mouth of the Nile, but not to leave the river. When half the moneys promised are paid, the ships will sail for Acre, to which city we will be allowed to withdraw without molestation. The final two hundred thousand livres may be dispatched under guard from the safety of that city. As security that it shall be paid, some number of lesser knights as well as the common prisoners—archers, foot soldiers, and the like—will remain in the hands of the Saracens.”

  “We will weigh out the initial two hundred thousand beginning this hour and finish if it takes the whole of the night—”

  “Your Majesty, I must protest!”

  “And I must pay,” I retort sharply, rounding on him. “If your dear dead wife and my dear friend Yolande sat in your place to advise me, she would not question me as you do now! She would understand that as a wife and a queen I must take whatever risks are necessary to save my kingly husband.”

  “And if the infidels blockade His Majesty’s ships?”

  “At least I will know I have tried.”

  I LEAD EVERYONE TO THE ships myself, with baby Jean in my arms and my eyes fixed on the chests of counted gold and silver being borne before me. As it turned out, two full days were needed to weigh the first half of the ransom. I could never have imagined that. Nor could I imagine I would still be in ignorance as to whether Jean lived after such a time. But Geoffrey de Sergines had bound himself to return to his captors forthwith with my answer as a condition of his being allowed to come. I could not even persuade him to rest long enough to have a meal, for he feared that if the Egyptians thought he had made his own escape, they might hurt the king. Had he dined, I would have begged him to make a list of all men of rank still among the living. As it was, he departed within moments of having my commitment to pay, telling me only the names of the ladies among my train he knew for a fact to be widows, and leaving me as hungry in spirit as he was in body.

  Dawn is just breaking. The flickering light of the torches illuminating our way, along with the notable absence of noise other than the shuffling of feet, gives our procession a funereal atmosphere. Matilda staggers along just behind me, supported by Jeanne and Marie. I would that the ransom could buy her husband back for her. And yet, though the thought is cruel, it seems somehow fitting that he of all my husband’s brothers should die. After all, was it not on his account that Louis pursued Cairo rather than Alexandria?

  “Just think, soon we will be going home.” Be
atrice’s bright voice is jarring. Now that she is sure that Charles is alive, my sister, inappropriate as always, is all high spirits, as if our ordeal were over, when in truth we are in the midst of it.

  I ignore her, looking instead toward the Genoese galley waiting next to my own ship to receive the two hundred thousand livres in coin and plate destined to free my husband from Saracen hands. It will row to a point farther inland along the river where a pavilion has been erected. This is the place at which Louis and his remaining knights will board the ship. Only one galley is needed as de Sergines estimated that little more than one hundred knights remain. Holy Mary, Mother of God, did we not leave Aigues-Mortes with at least twenty times as many? If a score of men rot in the desert or float bloated in the Nile for each knight who boards that ship this afternoon, how can I continue to hope that Jean has survived?

  Once we are on board the royal nef, most go below immediately, but I stand at the rail with ever-faithful Marie, watching the surrounding ships take on passengers. The Duke of Burgundy is nearby. Neither of us speaks, perhaps because words seem useless at present.

  The boards are pulled up, and a man who looks oddly familiar approaches the duke. It is the sailor who spoke on behalf of the Pisans and Genoese on the day my baby was delivered. He seems to be the captain of this vessel. “Shall we make sail, Your Grace?”

  “Can we not wait until His Majesty’s ship is ready to sail?” I ask.

  “Impossible, Your Majesty,” the duke, not the sailor, responds. “The infidels may want the ransom weighed out again. Would you hold us ship-bound for days? Besides, we are not safe this close to shore now that Damietta is out of our hands.”

  “All right then,” I say, nodding curtly.

  I turn from my present position and cross the deck to face the open sea. I will have to take Louis’s sailing on faith. How unfortunate, I think as the sail is unfurled and the first tear rolls down my cheek, that I have so little faith left at present.

  AS SOON AS LOUIS’S SHIP is sighted, I order my people—all who made the journey with me from Damietta: knights, ladies, even servants—to make themselves ready in their finest array that we might meet the king as if he returned victorious. Many nobles of the city of Acre, where we have found refuge, join us on our way to the wharf, bringing Palfreys to carry the returning French knights up the hill to the castle that has been given over to the king’s use. Jean Tristan is with me, but safely in his nurse’s arms. I feel too unsteady to trust myself with him.

  The deck of the galley is crowded with figures notable at a distance largely for their odd costumes. Many are dressed more like infidels than knights; some appear as nothing more than bundles of rags. Then, as the gap between the galley and the shore closes, comes the moment when faces can be recognized. Frantically the ladies gathered around me begin to search for familiar features. I look to the center of the deck, expecting to see Louis, but he is not there.

  Having done my duty, and looked for the husband whom I know lives first, my eyes begin to search for the face I most want to see. Figure after figure fails to belong to my seneschal. Not that determining as much is an easy task. The men are, all of them, changed so greatly. And with every knight who proves to be other than Jean, my search becomes more frenzied. It seems no matter how many times I cautioned my heart over the last days that my love is likely dead and I will see him no more, my foolish heart heard without believing. I wonder, when Jean fails to get off the ship, will I fall dead where I stand?

  Near the right end of the railing, my eyes alight on Philippe of Nemours, his face so dirty that, but for the fact I have seen him a thousand times, I might not have known him. Next to Nemours stands a figure, draped in a blanket tied at the waist with a bit of cord, who searches my face. When the dark eyes meet mine, I can no longer hear the calls of those on shore hailing those on the ship, nor feel the jostling of my ladies as they twist and shift to see better. It is Jean! Without volition I fall to my knees, overcome by a thanksgiving such as I have never known. Dear God, I know at last the meaning of grace. For only by my Savior’s largesse could my love be alive and carried home to me—I do not deserve such mercy. Praying in the dirt of the pier, I swear that never again will I doubt, but while I breathe I will trust the cross.

  Without meaning to do so, I have set an example. The ladies around me begin to sink to their knees with hands clasped in prayer. The noblemen follow suit, and we are hundreds on our knees as the plank is laid to the ship to allow its passengers to disembark. For a moment nothing happens.

  “Where is the king?” someone murmurs.

  A ripple moves through the crowd. Can it be that Louis was not released or expired on the voyage? Then the men nearest the top of the ramp part and make way. A figure, so thin and frail that a gust of wind might toss it overboard, emerges. Clad all in black satin and fur, his garments cut like those of a sultan, my husband stands and surveys his subjects below. But if we expect some pronouncement, there is none. Making his way down the plank on shaky legs, Louis prostrates himself cruciform as soon as he reaches dry land. After a moment he struggles to push himself up to his knees. His actions are painful to watch. They might belong to a man of fourscore years; yet Louis is only six-and-thirty. Once kneeling, he cannot rise alone and reaches out. The Duke of Burgundy rushes to assist him. Rising, I follow. Upon reaching my husband, I curtsy before him.

  “Your Majesty, how we have prayed for this moment.”

  Louis extends a hand and ever so tentatively touches my cheek. His form is withered and wasted past even what it was when he returned from death to take the cross. His hair is so dull and matted, it would be impossible for anyone who did not know him to imagine that once it glittered like spun gold. His eyes are hollow and so sad that I find my own tearing in response.

  “Surely not this moment, lady wife. For I come to you in defeat and greatly ashamed of it.”

  “What need is there for shame when you have given God your best? And while it is certain all here would have been gladdened by a victory, we give praise nonetheless to God and his saints for Your Majesty’s preservation and return.”

  Instinctively I offer my arm to my husband as one might to an elderly person. He takes it with a look of gratitude such as I have never received from him before. A strange thought flits through my mind: might I have an opportunity to love Louis broken, as I was never allowed to love him when he was possessed of certitude and strength? Is God giving me a second chance to be a good wife and a blameless woman?

  But as Louis is helped to his horse by a dozen eager hands and I to mine, I find myself searching the crowd for Jean. It seems it is not in my nature to cleave only to one man, though I make an oath to myself as our horses are in motion that I will nurse Louis with all the tenderness I possess.

  THE GREAT HALL LOOKS LIKE a hospital and smells like a barn. I have seen my husband to his own apartment; ordered his dinner; called for his bath to be drawn; undressed him for that bath with my own hands; and burned his clothing. Leaving him in the care of his servants, I made my way to this place, trying with every step to force the image of Louis’s poor naked figure from my mind—the ribs jutting out from beneath stretched and sallow skin, the bites of countless fleas, the dirty matted hair in his most private region, and everywhere dust and dirt on a man who always kept himself meticulously clean.

  I am here to find Jean. But, in order not to seem too obvious, I offer a kind word to every gentleman I recognize and encouragement to every wife come to claim and lead or carry away her returning husband. What seemed like so few survivors when we heard their number seems overwhelming now that I must search among them. As I leave yet another group, a voice sounds behind me.

  “In all my dreams the angels had only one face.”

  Bursting into tears, I turn. Jean, or what is left of him, stands before me. His hair, uncut since God knows when, is long and wild like a hermit’s. Dirty curls brush his shoulders and mingle with the thick, curly, matted beard that obscures his face. He
is incompletely covered in the rough blanket he wears, and the naked limbs that protrude are streaked with dirt. His right calf is scarred, clearly from a wound that festered before it healed, and I wince, wondering where else his beautiful body has been pierced and slashed. His feet are bare.

  Yet Jean smiles. How can he smile in such a condition? “Angels ought not to cry.”

  I wipe my eyes on my sleeve. “You look terrible.” It is the truth, but it is not what I want to say. I want to throw my arms about him and tell him that I love him.

  “Thank you.” His slightly mocking bow very nearly undoes me. “I hope to find something more suitable for court when next I appear.” Then becoming serious he says, “You were safely delivered of your child?”

  “A beautiful son.” A tear escapes Jean’s eye, leaving a track in the dirt that covers his face and disappearing into his unkempt beard. “I will introduce you when you have had some rest.”

  “I must find lodgings.”

  “No.” Putting a hand on his arm, I turn him toward a window. In its recess there is no one to hear me. “Rest, love,” I say, touching his shoulder as he sinks to the stone of the window ledge. “Let me care for you. Is that not what angels do?”

  Leaving Jean, I set off with purposeful step, plunging back into the crowd. I know whom I am looking for—the bishop of Acre, who is present, condoling with the sick and offering last rites to those whose conditions seem to make that prudent. The bishop is a countryman of Jean’s. Surely, I think, he will help. And I am not disappointed.

  Returning to Jean, I find he has fallen asleep leaning in the window’s corner. For the moment I do not wake him, but instead examine his once-familiar face and form more closely. Like Louis, he is but a shadow of the man who left me—underweight and covered in dirt. But unlike Louis, when his face is in repose it seems very like his old self, not transfigured by grief and loss as my husband’s is.