Four Sisters, All Queens

by Jones, Sherry

  “And the lack of these ‘attributes’ prevents a woman’s mind from functioning properly?” Eléonore puts in. “And yet God created woman, and her mind. Are you accusing him of shoddy work?”

  Louis titters. “As you said, my good Thomas, women cannot always comprehend these intellectual matters. Rigorous thoughts are best reserved for men, while women focus on the less taxing work of bearing and rearing children.” Marguerite wonders how he knows about rearing children, since he pays little mind to theirs.

  “My lady, it is not the work of God but the influence of external forces that taints woman’s being. Her essence—her soul, if you will—was indeed created as perfect as that of man.”

  “External forces?” Eléonore frowns. “What do you mean?”

  “Sexual temptation, no doubt,” Louis says, giving her a pointed look. “See how easily Eve was tempted in the garden. By a serpent.”

  “Yes, and we all know that men have no such temptations,” Sanchia says from her seat at the end of the table. Marguerite and Eléonore exchange surprised looks. Hearing this harsh note from Sanchia’s lips is like hearing a nightingale utter a raven’s cry. She has removed her gloves for dinner and washed her hands in the bowl before her. Her fingernails have been chewed to the quick. “More wine, please,” she says, lifting her goblet.

  The talk turns to virtues, and which are the most important. Louis suggests humility and justice. Loyalty, says Eléonore, to which Marguerite agrees, glancing at Mama and Beatrice who are sharing their meal in silence, having brought their unhappiness on themselves. Honesty is Sanchia’s offering, to which Richard adds temperance. Kindness, she retorts. Temperance, he says again.

  “We must not forget patience,” Henry says, “which has produced today’s treaty after five years of negotiations.”

  Marguerite hides her amusement. Henry’s intransigence over Normandy, Anjou, and Maine is to blame for the treaty’s slow progress. Only the threat of revolt from his barons convinced him to give up his stubborn claims. Louis had resistance from the French barons, as well, who thought he gave up too much. But as he pointed out, Henry will have to pledge fealty to him, since the treaty establishes Gascony as a fief of France. “He was not my man before; now he will be. So I have gained a man—a king, in fact, and a most excellent man,” he said. Now he will do as he pleases, which is his tendency. Daily floggings and contempt toward Marguerite are not the only legacies he inherited from his mother.

  At Louis’s signal, the trumpets sound. Marguerite walks with him to their thrones, at the opposite end of the hall, followed by Henry and Eléonore. The crowd rises as they make their way. She returns the smile of Jean—who has brought his wife, a nice enough woman, if you like the bland sort; then of St. Pol, the celebrated knight, twirling his great mustache. She smiles at Thibaut, the King of Navarre, seated beside her mother and looking as delighted as if the countess were his beloved Blanche returned from the dead.

  Beatrice glowers, which satisfies Marguerite. She recalls how, years ago, Blanche humiliated Isabella of Angoulême by refusing to honor her as a queen. Isabella started a revolt because of it; might the hot-tempered Beatrice do the same? Marguerite would then have the perfect excuse to invade Provence.

  Mama, however, gives her a smile. Seeing the pride on her face softens Marguerite’s heart toward her. That conniver Charles must have deceived her, or threatened her, to make her abandon her fight and sign over her Provençal castles to him.

  Noise arises from the doorway, where commoners jostle to watch the ceremony—and to greet King Henry. “Welcome back to France, good king!” a woman shouts, and more cheers erupt. They remember his generosity—his extravagance—on his previous visit, when he sprinkled coins like falling rain into their open palms. Now, with so many demands on his dwindling treasury, he has come with his palm out, too, in hopes that she and Louis can supply him with money and men to quell the uprising in Wales. They have not yet told him that their answer is “no.”

  If he knew, would he bend his knee to Louis, his crown removed, humbling himself? Would he place his right hand between Louis’s hands, signifying his submission?

  The pledge made, Henry rises. The two men embrace. The shouts and chants of the onlookers fill the hall with happy cacophony. She and Eléonore kiss. Mama rushes up, her face rosy, her eyes bright.

  “I thank God that I lived to see this day, when my eldest daughters have joined two kingdoms in peace,” she says. “If only all my children could get along.”

  “Convince your youngest to give to me what is mine, and your wish may come true,” Marguerite says.

  Odo, the Abbott of St. Denis and the only man who makes Marguerite laugh in this cheerless court, bows to her and kisses her hand. “Your beauty is exceeding on this day, my lady. I will have to trust my horse to lead me to Rome until I can clear the bedazzlement from my eyes.”

  “Not too dazzled, I trust, to remember my petition,” she says.

  He pats the bag slung around his shoulder. “I have it here, and shall present it as soon as I arrive.” He winks. “I shall use all my influence with His Grace. He may grant you Provence in spite of it.”

  When he has gone, Mama turns to her. “Provence? But Margi, I have signed it to Beatrice and Charles.”

  “You have sold what is not yours to bestow,” she says, sorry for her curt tone but, really, Mama should know. “Tarascon is mine, Mama. I have the documents to prove it.”

  “Oh, Margi.” Her mother sighs. “What do you hope to gain by continuing this battle?”

  “Only what has been promised to me.”

  “Forget it, dear! You have other castles. You have an entire kingdom. What do you want with Tarascon?”

  “I want a place of my own, in Provence.” Marguerite blinks away her tears. “I thought you, of all people, would understand. Since you have been so recently forced to leave.”

  “Yes, a lot of benefit I gained from years of fighting,” Mama says. “Beatrice is your sister, Marguerite. I thought I had taught you girls to help one another. She admires you so.”

  “She has a strange way of showing admiration.”

  “She has a very strong-willed husband.”

  “I am just as strong.”

  “This struggle will weaken you, Margi. Fighting against your family amounts to fighting against yourself.”

  “Charles of Anjou is not my family,” Marguerite says.

  “Do you hear yourself? Stubborn—just like me. Or as I used to be. Do you remember, O Sheba, how you once wished for wisdom? Let me pass some of mine to you: a bit of land and a castle are not worth the loss of a sister.”

  Sanchia approaches, listing a bit. “Have you injured yourself?” Marguerite asks.

  “Have I?” she says. The fragrance of wine blooms from her mouth. “I don’t feel any pain.”

  “Sanchia, help me,” Mama says. “Don’t you agree that Margi should stop fighting over Provence?”

  “Yes, I do. Beatrice loves you. When are you going to give up, and accept things as they are?”

  In her incredulous head, Marguerite’s laugh echoes as if she stood alone in this hall. “Excuse me,” she says.

  “Where are you going?” Mama asks.

  “To congratulate Thomas of Aquino,” she says. “We argued earlier, but I find myself agreeing with him.” And off she goes to concede his point: some ideas are, apparently, too complex for woman’s grasp.

  Sanchia

  The Opposite of Love

  Berkhamsted Castle, Cornwall, 1261

  Thirty-three years old

  THE LIGHT. SHE opens her eyes. Light billows in, rolls like fog over the chairs, the tables, the bed, pours over her like water, fills her nose and mouth. She opens her mouth, sucks it in, seeking air but getting only light, strangling on the light, oh where is the blessed darkness now? Her lungs wheeze and cough, light flies from her lips and then hands are slipping under her back, arms lifting her up, Papa, she smiles but he turns away, the light falls away and th
ere is breath again, ah.

  I knew you would come back. He lowers her and pulls his arms away, she reaches out but he is gone and her confessor, John of Trent, presses a piece of wood to her lips, would he suffocate her, too? But then it is gone and he is singing a strange tune. Miserére mei, Deus: secúndum magnam misericordiam tuam. Glora Patri, et Filii, et Spiritui Sancti. God knows she is innocent. But does Richard?

  Her chest rises and falls as he chants, the air so thick the candle flames lick it away before it reaches her, she labors for every drop, like sucking the juice from an apple. She breathes in with pursed lips, filtering out the light so the air can seep in, cooling her tired lungs, ah. They have come to pray for her, to beg God to save her. Stop, she tries to say but candle smoke burns her lungs and she wracks, choking, her hands flail until the candles are knocked over and the priest and Papa are stomping out the flames at last and she can breathe. Take me now, O Lord. Her beloved Jesus awaits.

  Exaudi nos, Domine sancte. Fingertips etch the sign of the cross on her forehead, her hands, her chest, crosses she will wear like proud badges when she greets her Lord at the mansion he has prepared for her. He will put his arms around her and hold her close. Love, at long last, and for all eternity. Take me now.

  But not like this, scrambling for breath. She gasps. “My lady, it is time to confess your sins.”

  She thinks of Richard’s face, excited, like a child’s, he was to be Holy Roman Emperor, Stupor Mundi, and her tart response, that he is no Frederick II, no Astonishment of the World, only a man, although—after his expression changed, his eyes glaring at her—he is a great man, one of the best.

  “No thanks to you,” he said, hoping to offend her, but she took another sip of wine and felt only warmth in her blood. Is it a sin to tell the truth, even when it hurts? She should have started long ago. She should have confronted him instead of going to Floria, he might have respected her more instead of snorting with contempt when she speaks. His hand over her mouth while he pushed himself inside her. Your beauty is most perfect when you are silent.

  How beautiful she must have been, then, as they rode into Germany. She never uttered a word, her dread of that awful place bunched up in her.

  “I have no intention of taking you back so you can offend our subjects again,” Richard had promised but he did not keep his word. When she reminded him, he only laughed. “Don’t you want to be empress? We shall rule Germany, Italy, Burgundy, and Sicily.” But she had not wanted to be a queen, let alone an empress. The people are so rude, never smiling until she fell—and then they laughed, red-faced and loud, embarrassing Richard. He removed her to her chambers and said she would have no more German beer on this visit. But neither was she offered wine. The only thing I asked was that you charm the people. Where is your tongue, Sanchia?

  Her tongue is in the goblet, but there was no goblet in Germany, only stern faces and a language of clearing throats and throats in need of clearing. Even “I love you” sounds coarse: Ich liebe dich.

  Papa lifts her again and carries her to the bed, back to the light, but she wants darkness and quiet so she can breathe. She squeezes his arm, don’t place me in the sun, I will die, but he lays her in the beam and her head fills up and begins to crack apart. No, she tries to say, but Richard has closed his eyes and is crossing himself as if she were dead. But where is Papa? Dead, for how long? She was barely a bride and now she is thirty-three. And yet, he was here. Or was it he? While he lived, Papa never held her in his arms.

  The light has wrapped itself around her throat but gently. Her headache is gone for the first time in weeks.

  “I thought she might like a little wine, she enjoys it so much.” The nasal voice of Abraham wriggles like a worm into her ear. The way he looks at her, as if they shared a secret and not a pleasant one. As if she were the shameful one. As if Richard brought her home without an empress’s crown because of something she did and not because the man tasting Richard’s food fell over in a heap.

  After the taster died, a note was delivered to Richard, signed by Manfred. You are next, unless you leave my kingdom today. She saw his fear. His red eyes, his haggard face. Mr. Arnold marched into her chambers and ordered the maids about: pack this, roll that up.

  Manfred is coming, and the German knights have refused to fight him. The bastard son of Frederick II is as a god to them. Richard cannot compete, spend what he will. And he has spent so much, thousands and thousands of marks on backward little villages, on crumbling castles. They never appreciated his efforts even though their revered Frederick lived in splendor in Italy on the taxes his German subjects paid, and never spent a cent of it on them. Frederick was a Hohenstaufen, and Richard is an Englishman, and their little minds cannot forget this. Yet they overlook Manfred’s birth to a concubine, one of Frederick’s harem, a Muslim woman, not even a Christian. She was probably a belly dancer, too.

  “Thank you, Abraham. That is very kind.” Sanchia’s mouth begins to water for the taste of the wine. It would ease her pain, although she is feeling better now. The Father’s prayers have worked like magical spells. Perhaps she should confess her over-enjoyment of wine to him, but Richard might hear and then he would never allow her to have more.

  “I think Sanchia is resting now, but she may welcome a bit of refreshment later.” Don’t leave! she would cry if her voice were not lost. If Abraham did not hold her tongue in the goblet on his tray.

  She dreams of a unicorn sleeping with its head in her lap. Light streams from its horn and across her thighs, her belly, her womb. The light purifies her. She is innocent again, happy as she has been only once in her life, as a young girl playing with her sisters. Who cared if Margi and Elli always gave her the worst roles in their play, and made her carry the arrows to their archery lessons, and invented foolish lyrics to sing in falsetto as she played her harp? Who cared if Beatrice clung to her as a babe to its mother’s breast, slowing her down as she tried to keep up with Elli? She had her sisters to love, and she felt loved. Then Margi and Elli went away and Beatrice caught Papa’s fancy, and she was left all alone in that big château with only the servants, who ignored her, and the poets, who paid too much attention. She hid in the nursery from their staring eyes, their whistles, their songs in praise of her beauty; while the gaze for which she yearned almost never turned her way. I have never cared for fair hair.

  The unicorn awakens and lifts its head, wraps its golden horn in her golden hair. Jesus loves her hair. He came to her in wedding clothes, holding out his hands to her. She betrothed herself to him, but Mama didn’t care. The Earl Richard is the richest man in England, the king’s brother, and he wants you. Think of how you may help your sisters, your uncles, your mother.

  She has been of no help to anyone, not even to Richard. She lies in the dark, thinking of the light, the blessed light from the unicorn’s horn. She has lived all her life in the dark, hiding herself away, wishing she were ugly so that only her Lord would want her. He who sees our souls and not our bodies. He whose love is the fruit of fruits, in rare abundance.

  That would be like throwing the keys to the treasury down a deep well, Mama said. You can serve the Lord better by serving your family. But she has done neither. She is a failure as Richard’s wife, a disappointment as his queen. She has tried—for seventeen years—to be all that he wants her to be, to be all that her mother hoped. To deny herself.

  She sits up in bed. It is not too late. In England, the citizens have joined the barons in revolt. Henry and Eléonore have locked themselves in the Tower of London, fearing for their lives, and have begged for Richard’s help. But he has refused to become involved. He doesn’t want to anger the barons, he says. He is the only one who can help us now, Eléonore wrote. You must use all your charms to convince him. Then she will have done her duty. And she can join the abbey at Hailes with a clear conscience, and Richard can find a new, more queenly, wife.

  “Thank you, Jesus,” she whispers. Her heart’s beating is steady and strong, more sure than it
has been in months. She first fell ill upon returning to Berkhamsted one year ago, after their flight from Germany. First there were headaches, mild at first and then piercing, filling her head with screams, perplexing all the physicians. She sat at dinner with Richard unable to form a sentence, unable, after a time, to remember what day it was, what year, talking one night about becoming the Holy Roman Empress, forgetting that they had made the journey and been threatened, that they had fled their kingdom in a most unkingly manner.

  “I have had a new gown made for our coronation, would you like to see it?”

  His scowl. He did not appreciate her humor, he said. Abraham came to refill her goblet—he has become so solicitous. Richard sent him away that night, saying that she had apparently drunk more than enough.

  “No, I have had only one glass. Please, Richard, it makes me feel better.” Her face burns at the memory, how she begged him. Was that a grimace on his face as he denied her? Or was it a satisfied smile? He did not approve of overindulgence in strong drink, saying it made fools of men and women of fools.

  She used to appreciate his taking care of her. He pampered her, then scolded her and then, after Floria’s death, ignored her. Abraham blamed her, holding up that chess piece as if it proved her guilt, although he was the one who killed her. Had he heard their quarrel? Did he know about the baby his wife carried? He took two lives, and although Sanchia felt relief mixed with her sorrow, she would not have done it. Thou shalt not kill. She keeps the commandments faithfully, except for Thou shalt not commit adultery, because, even though she has already married Jesus, she lives as wife to Richard.

  She has done her duty to him. She has given him two sons, Edmund, so intelligent, his mind inherited from his father, and Richard, a thoughtful boy of ten who shares his father’s interest in money. How they love their mother! But they spend their days and nights at Windsor Castle with Eléonore’s children, and will not miss her when she joins the convent. Her spirits soaring, she calls for Elise, her handmaid now that poor Justine has died, who approaches her bed with wide eyes. Why does she cover her chest with her arms? Is she wearing a new gown? But it looks familiar.