The Sister Queens

by Sophie Perinot

  Six men stand before the king. They do not tremble, perhaps because Louis looks so calm, so detached. But I tremble for them.

  “The two who did not come forward must be lashed,” Louis pronounces, “for their own improvement. Then all who were indolent in their duties will be placed in the boat that trails this ship and stay there for the rest of the journey.”

  There is a general gasp all around, and the men who were caught sleeping look sick. “But, surely, Your Majesty, this is too great a punishment,” Brother Raymond says delicately. “You have condemned them to the same treatment given murderers. While they are lazy, good-for-nothing oafs, they are not, I think, criminals.”

  “They are sinners, or have you forgotten that sloth is a cardinal sin?”

  “Yes, but not a mortal sin, and, like all sins, it can be forgiven.”

  “You make an excellent point, Brother. I suggest,” Louis continues, this time addressing the men, some of whom are now quaking quite visibly, “that you use your time apart from the company of your fellows in prayer, beseeching Our Lord for forgiveness of your sin.”

  Then Louis turns on his heel and heads for his cabin. I trail behind, even though it is a place I do not generally intrude upon. Before he disappears inside, with Jean and his other councilors, I call out. “Your Majesty!”

  “Yes, Wife?” Louis’s expression is puzzled rather than threatening.

  I come forward until I am directly before him and sink into a deep reverence. Keeping my eyes on the deck, I say, “I would beg for clemency for the men just dispatched to the small boat.”

  “Why?” The confusion in Louis’s voice draws my eyes to his face.

  “It was on my whim that they were sent forth and on my errand that they failed in their duties. I therefore feel some responsibility for them and ask most humbly that, at very least, the time they are relegated to the boat be shortened. The sun is fearful in an uncovered craft. The waves are high. Surely a week in such circumstances will be enough to teach them a lesson.”

  “Wife, your efforts do you credit, but the objects of your concern do not deserve your sympathy or intervention. I do not think less of you for pleading for mercy for others as I might think of them if they pleaded for it themselves, but nor shall I yield to your entreaties. And as for your fear that you are in part responsible for the situation in which these rogues find themselves, I command you to put that thought out of your head. You are no more to blame for their dereliction of duty than am I who ordered the boats ashore.”

  Perhaps Louis is right. Perhaps I am not culpable. Yet I cannot convince myself I am entirely without responsibility. That night, my prayers are full of the sailors my husband punishes, though I do not even know their names. The next morning when I go onto deck, I am quickly forced inside again by the presence of the men in the boat. Whether I am to blame for their plight or not, the sea air has been spoiled for me.

  A week later in the late afternoon, Jean steps into my cabin.

  “Come on deck. There is going to be a beautiful sunset.”

  “I am fine where I am.” I give him a smile and hope that will satisfy him. This is not the first invitation I have refused in the past days.

  “What is the matter, Marguerite? You have hardly been on deck for days. You tell me you are not ill, but I no longer know if I should believe you.” Jean furrows his brow in the way that always makes me want to soothe him.

  “Whenever I go on deck, my feet are drawn to the stern and my eyes to those hapless men we tow behind.”

  Jean sighs.

  “Have you seen them?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are they not pitiful and pitiable?”

  “Yes.

  “But your staying inside will not ameliorate their condition. You spoke to the king. I spoke to the king. Verily, I do not think there is a preudomme on this ship who has not spoken to the king. Louis will not hear reason.” He gives another sigh and then, looking deep into my eyes, says, “All your continued absence does is attract the king’s attention.”

  I had not thought of this. But it makes perfect sense. Louis, always a man of routine whether in his religious observations or his personal life, became increasingly obsessed with order through the course of our sojourn in the Holy Land. Perhaps because there was so much he could not control, he instituted a strict schedule for that which he could. This habit continues as we voyage home. He dines at the same hour daily and likes his gentlemen to take always the same seats. Similarly, he visits my bed every Tuesday, unless that be a holy day. This bit of regularity, at least, is a comfort to me as well as to him for it allows Jean and me to meet on other nights without fear that the king shall surprise us in my bedchamber.

  “All right,” I say, making up my mind that I cannot remain in my cabin for all the weeks that remain in our voyage. “I will come and see the sunset.”

  “DO NOT DAWDLE,” I SNAP as Marie and my little béguines clear away what is left of our cold supper. We have eaten late this evening because the king requested I play chess with him. We passed the time quite pleasantly and Louis had not one cross word for me, even when I made a silly error. But now I am eager to forget my husband and have my time with Jean. I wonder if the sudden urgency of my lust for him is sparked by the babe that grows inside me of whom Jean as yet knows nothing, or by the moment as I left the king’s cabin when it seemed he would kiss me but withdrew his lips at the last moment.

  In either case, I am in a fine state. Just the thought of Jean’s arrival is enough to cause a few unexpected contractions in the region that now aches for him. And as my women turn from clearing my table to undressing me, I notice with embarrassment that the profile of my nipples, pointed and pert, shows clearly through my chemise.

  “That will do; that will do,” I chide as one of my béguines tries to neatly lay the garments that have been removed from me and cover them. Seated at my small dressing table, I eagerly remove my wimple and cast it carelessly aside. At last there is nothing more to remove and my women are tucking me into bed. Marie dismisses the béguines to their own cabin below mine to take their rest. They presume, of course, that she will lie on the pallet at the foot of my bed and take hers, but she goes to sit in my forward cabin, waiting to admit Jean before making a bed for herself on the bench there.

  I draw back the curtains on my window as soon as she is gone. The sea is splashed liberally with the light of the waning moon. The candles around my cabin, sunk deep in their iron pots for safety, cast glimmering circles of light. A feeling of enchantment fills the cozy space, mingling with my anticipation.

  Impatient for Jean to arrive, I pull off my chemise and run my own hands over my body. My state of arousal is so great that I cannot resist pleasuring myself. This seems indulgent as Jean will surely come soon to take me, but I excuse myself with the knowledge that if I have already experienced the release of my lust, I will be more patient with him.

  Finger between my legs, knees drawn up, eyes fixed on the moon outside, I lie, thinking of Jean and me in our little house at Tyre, when I hear the door creak.

  “By heaven,” Jean’s voice says gruffly, “what have we here?”

  “Come to me,” I reply eagerly. “I am desperate to have you.”

  “So I see,” he says, “just as this moment am I to have you.” He begins to strip off his garments, his muscles rippling gracefully in the candlelight and his eyes on me as I continue to touch myself.

  Coming to the side of the bed, he lies on his side next to me and begins to kiss me, his hand caressing my belly. Then, putting his mouth by my ear, he whispers, “Let me watch you.”

  I should feel shamed by this idea, but I feel exhilarated. He crawls to the end of the bed and settles himself near my feet. I continue with my self-ministrations, exaggerating every gesture and every vocalized moan of pleasure for his benefit. As my excitement builds, I forget he is there and abandon myself to it—eyes closed, back arching, body spasming around the fingers I have inserted inside it.
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br />   By the time my eyes flicker open again, Jean is looming over me, chest heaving. I wrap my legs around him as he pushes fiercely into me. Jean’s passion is as pounding as the waves and tosses me about as if I were a ship upon him.

  As he rides me, running his hands over every inch of my flesh, I smell something odd—the acrid odor of smoke. I sniff again, but I detect nothing and have no more attention for such things. Then, as Jean cries out in the pleasure of release, the odor comes again.

  “Jean!” I gasp, but cannot capture his attention. “Something is burning!”

  I scramble to push myself up to a sitting position even as he remains inside me. There are flames at the foot of my bed!

  “Fire!” My voice is hoarse and not loud enough that anyone outside the cabin could hear it, but the dreaded word captures Jean’s full attention.

  Both of us are on our feet in an instant, looking around frantically. The bedclothes, kicked off the end of my bed in our exertions, are engulfed in flame, and nearby I see one of my iron candle pots spewing flames like a torch.

  I fly to the window and yank it open, then racing back, throw my surcote, laid aside when my ladies undressed me, over the flaming pot and cast the whole out onto the waves. Meanwhile Jean is doing what he can to beat out the flames in the sheets. Together we catch them up and shove them out the window as well. For a moment we both stand, breathing heavily.

  “Dear God, the whole ship might have burned.” I run to him and rest my head against his chest.

  “Fire!”

  The voice startles me nearly as much as did the first sight of the flames. “What?” I cry.

  “It must be someone on deck or the fellows in the boat behind. They have spotted the charred and smoldering fabric we cast adrift,” Jean replies.

  “Go!” I cry, snatching up his shirt from the stool near my dressing table and tossing it to him. “If you are found here ’twill be worse than if the ship had burned!”

  Jean is in his shirt and tunic in an instant. Opening the door to my forward cabin, he runs directly into Marie. She looks wildly about at the bed torn apart, the open window, and the thick haze of smoke that still hangs near the ceiling.

  “I am unhurt,” I shout. “Pray get my Lord of Joinville safely away.”

  As soon as they are gone, I pull on a chemise and find a pelisse. After assuring myself that nothing else burns—not the coverlet, though it is singed, not what remains of the chainsil that covered my clothing, nor any of the clothing itself now strewn about the floor—I remove the remaining sheets from my bed and stuff them out the window. They may not burn, but they tell a tale that those who come to witness the site of the fire must not see. Then I venture out onto the deck. Louis is there with his back to me. As I approach, I can see that he addresses Caym.

  “Where is my Lord of Joinville?” Louis asks, his voice fierce.

  “He has gone to the latrines, Your Majesty.”

  “Liar!”

  “If you have need of him, I will gladly run and fetch him.”

  “Louis.” At the sound of my voice my husband turns.

  “Madam, what goes on here?” My husband’s face is livid.

  I rush forward as if in fear and, taking the front of his mantle in my hands, rest my head against his chest just as I moments ago rested it on Jean’s. I give a little sob and then looking up say, “Husband, I know not how it came to pass, but I awoke from my slumber to find my bed engulfed in flames!”

  “You slept?”

  “Of course—did not Your Majesty at this hour?”

  Taking my hand, Louis pulls me through my forward cabin, thankfully oblivious to the cover lying on the bench where Marie slept, and into my bedchamber. Although I left the window flung wide, there are still traces of smoke lingering.

  “Light more candles,” Louis orders Marie who followed us in. This she does and then begins to pick up things and make them right as Louis stares about wildly.

  “Something goes on here. Sheets do not just catch fire while one sleeps.”

  I nod my head in honest confusion. “I have no idea how the fire started.” And because it is the truth, it rings true.

  Marie, who has been gathering my clothing from the day over her arm, picks up my couvre-chef and then, giving me a puzzled look, asks, “Your Majesty, where is your wimple?”

  She and I look in earnest while Louis stands by, searching under my dressing table and bed as well as all about on the floor.

  “That must be it,” I say with some satisfaction. “When I awoke, the iron pot that sat here, just next to my covered garments, blazed entirely full of flame. The wimple must have fallen into it and began all.”

  “And where is the pot now?” Louis asks. He must be calming, for the question is more curious than angry.

  “I leapt up and cast it from the window. Then did the same with everything that burned.”

  “God be praised for your presence of mind!” Marie says fervently

  “And you?” Louis rounds on her. “Did you do nothing but stand gape-mouthed while your mistress did battle with the fire?”

  “Marie was most helpful, Your Majesty,” I chime in, giving her a look. “I could never have cast all those burning sheets out onto the waves alone.”

  Louis peers at my lady with the eyes of God on Judgment Day seeking answers, seeking falsehoods, seeking sin. For a moment I quake inside. Is Marie equal to withstanding such scrutiny? Will she lie to the king’s face, even to save me?

  “It was nothing, Your Majesty,” she says, coloring slightly—pray Louis attributes that to modesty. “Her Majesty gave commands; I merely followed them.”

  “It seems, madam,” Louis says, turning back to me, “that you have saved the ship.” If this is meant to be praise, it does not sound like it. “But someone’s carelessness put it in jeopardy. I will have to see that precautions are taken in future.”

  I do not like the way he says this. I do not like it at all.

  I PASS THE REST OF the night with my children. My cabin needs airing, and, besides, when I am in the company of my innocent babes, who will dare to say I am with anyone else?

  As soon as I am awake and dressed, I go on deck, hoping to hear what is being said about the fire. Marie is with me, and this is the first moment I have been alone with my good lady since she lied for me. Squeezing her hand, as we approach a group of men standing near the ship’s castle, I murmur my thanks.

  My Lord Gervase, the ship’s chief cook, is speaking as we draw near. “I always thought my fire was the most dangerous on board. Who would have foreseen the queen’s cabin catching alight?” He laughs slightly, though for the life of me I cannot see the jest. I clear my throat and he bows with a stricken look. “We are all relieved, Your Majesty, that the fire you suffered last night was not more serious.”

  “Thank you, my lord. Have you seen the king?”

  The Lord Chamberlain answers, “He is in his cabin with the Seneschal of Champagne, Your Majesty.”

  “Thank you.” I try to walk away calmly. After all, there is nothing unusual about Louis and Jean closeted together. They are close friends. But, after what I observed last night—the bile in Louis’s voice as he accused Jean’s man of falsehood—I am nervous indeed. I make up my mind to go back to my cabin. Surely Jean will wait upon me when he is finished with the king.

  But instead of Jean, a note comes to me telling me I will find him on deck, so back I go. I spot him high on the ship’s castle. Climbing the stairs to join him, I am somewhat surprised when he makes a formal bow.

  “Are we here for the view?” I quip nervously.

  “No. To be viewed. If I could have conceived of a place where we could more easily be seen, I would have chosen it.” Jean’s face is fixed in a smile, but his eyes belie it. “The king sought me this morning.”

  “I know it.”

  “Would you like to hear what he said when he found me?”

  I am dumb with fear.

  “He came upon me as I was talking wi
th le Brun. We naturally turned and bowed upon his approach, and then le Brun said, ‘Your Majesty, I am eager to hear what happened last night.’ To which your husband, looking squarely at me, replied, ‘Has the Seneschal not told you of the fire? I am all astonishment, for he knows as much of it as any man.’”

  My hand flutters toward my mouth; then, recollecting that we are clearly visible to all on deck, I arrest the motion. Forcing a smile, I say between my teeth, “Holy Mary, protect us.”

  “There is more.” Jean offers his arm and begins to stroll me down one side of the tower’s top as if we are enjoying the sight of the sea laid out before us. “En privé His Majesty commanded that I personally make certain that every fire aboard, except the main, be extinguished every evening and that I report as much to him before I sleep.”

  “It sounds to me as if he is merely affrighted of what might have happened had the fire been more serious.”

  “Does it? Then you are not listening closely. Do you know where I will be sleeping this evening? On a pallet at His Majesty’s feet. He told me his nerves are much agitated by recent events and that he might sleep more soundly for knowing that I am near at hand.”

  “Dear God, he knows.”

  “So it would seem—”

  I feel as though I might retch, and I can see Marie’s face where she stands, far enough away to be polite but still close enough to overhear, go pale as death.

  “Or at least he suspects. But it seems to me that he gives us a warning. He wants to be given reason to conclude he is mistaken.”

  I wonder for a moment, might Louis love both of us, Jean and me, such that his suspicions pain him?

  “As I was leaving,” Jean continues, “he said to me, ‘Seneschal, you are a gentleman I have valued from the first. There are none, other than my own brothers, whom I love more. So do not think I give you this commission to punish you, but rather because I know that you above all can be counted upon to do that which is right and to do it thoroughly.’”

  My husband orders Jean to give me up. However else his words could be interpreted, I know it plainly. And my charitable thoughts of a moment before fade, leaving me angry. “What does Louis know of what is right?” I demand. “Had he loved me as he ought to have …Had he loved me with even a tenth of the fervor he shows for God—”