Four Sisters, All Queens

by Jones, Sherry

  Now Pope Clement hides from Manfred in Viterbo. Five cardinals have come in his stead to lead today’s ceremony. Beatrice cannot help feeling cheated. The pope of Rome is supposed to set the crown on her head. Will the hands of mere cardinals tarnish the gold? Without a papal blessing, will hers and Charles’s authority be challenged?

  Last night, Charles laughed at her furrowed brow, her pursed lips. Has she forgotten how they stomped out the fires of mutiny in Marseille, how they rid Provence of heresy, how they defeated the Queen of France’s attempts to annul their father’s will and wrest their lands from them? “Together, we can do anything,” he said, then took her to bed and showed her what he meant.

  As she sits with him now, throne to throne, his hand cups hers and she feels a current from his touch, as if rivers of power flowed from his fingertips to hers and back again. They are unstoppable. When the goose meat stuffing the roasted, silver-dipped swans has been devoured, when the minstrels have piped and drummed and sung themselves dry of notes, when the dancers have churned themselves into a froth and floated away, when the men have told tales until their tongues are knotted with lies and everyone except Beatrice’s twenty-six thousand warriors has gone home, then will the real feast begin. Charles will fling their troops headlong into Sicily, aiming like a well-shot arrow for Manfred’s heart, for he and Beatrice will not be king and queen of anything until the last of Frederick’s heirs is dead. While Charles fights, Beatrice will be his general in Rome, launching ships, mobilizing troops, planning strategies, raising and spending money. Commanding men. A queen at last.

  “Looking for your hero St. Pol?” Charles asks, jealous as ever, as she watches the crowd stream into the cathedral. Every seat is filled and yet they continue to arrive, merchants, clergy, nobles, common folk.

  “I am thinking of my sisters,” she says. “I wish they were here.”

  He shrugs. “You have done well for yourself thus far, without their approval. Or their help.”

  It is their love she desires. But Charles would think her weak. “I want only their acknowledgment.”

  “You think a crown will make a difference? Will they at last place you among their ranks?”

  “Why not? I will be one of them. A queen.”

  “Cast them from your mind, my dear. You do not need them now. In fact, they will soon need you. You are going to be an empress. Your sisters will bend their knees to you. And Louis will bow to me.”

  So many conflicting thoughts bounce in her head that she cannot speak: She will always need her sisters; she belongs to them, and they to her, even if they do not acknowledge this fact; the only way to gain their acceptance is to give them the lands and money they have claimed; if Charles loves her, he must increase her happiness by doing so.

  But love takes as many forms as there are faces in this room, each of them strange, most of them unseeing. Charles’s love begins with himself. “Why would I give even a fistful of Provençal soil to that harpy Marguerite? Or to my brother, who would not spare a single mark for my battle after I fought so valiantly for him in Egypt?” he says.

  He loves Beatrice, but not her affection for her sisters. Sanchia was sweet enough, he used to say, but she lacked confidence except what she found in the bottom of her goblet. “She will never be of use to us, or to anyone.”

  Eléonore is too bold, he says. A wife should enhance her husband’s authority, not diminish it. She makes King Henry appear weak, and the people resent her for it. Never mind all the good she has done for England, if she has dispirited her subjects by outshining their king. See how the White Queen reigned with Louis in her lap, puppeting him so that he appeared to rule?

  “The people will bend to man’s authority, but not to woman’s,” Charles says. “The woman is head of the household, but man is head of the woman. That is the natural order, established by God.”

  Marguerite he calls conniving and weak, relying too much on her mind and too little on might. Had Beatrice’s inheritance been snatched away, she would have fought for it with an army, he points out, while Marguerite flails like a poor swimmer in too-deep waters with her endless petitions to the pope and her little intrigues. What’s more, she now has tried to usurp the power of Louis’s heir, Philip, by coercing from him a promise to give her “supreme authority” over all his kingly decisions.

  “She would rule France—and her son—as Mama did, but she is no Blanche of Castille,” Charles said with a sneer. In Beatrice’s mind, this is reason to love her sister more, not less.

  The cardinals step forward, their rings flashing in the splintered light. The spectators stand. One cardinal waves incense; another lights candles; another prays. They flit like birds all around her and Charles. She remembers a scene: Marguerite playing at her own coronation, giggling and jesting, making grotesque faces—until Eléonore placed a crown of daisies on her head. Her grin became a serene smile. Her shoulders squared themselves. Beatrice, just a tiny girl then, never forgot the transformation. And when she later saw Margi as a real queen, in the palace at Paris, the change proved to be real. The mirth had faded from her eyes, replaced by gravitas. “Our Margi has grown up,” Mama said, but Beatrice thought she had merely grown sad. She had not wanted to be queen; she wanted to be Countess of Provence. But, being a woman, she was not allowed to choose.

  Beatrice had no choice, either, in spite of Papa’s efforts. “In Provence, a woman may rule,” he said to her the day before he died. “You are more than capable. Hold on to your power at all costs.” But there was no holding on, not in this world. By the time Charles strode into her chambers and scooped her up, her fate had already been decided and her power usurped. Not even Mama could protest.

  Protest Mama did, however, as Charles took her castles away. Papa would not have wanted it, but Charles waved away Beatrice’s complaints as though they were gnats. Papa administered the county poorly, he said, pointing to the blooming Cathar communities, the self-governing Marseille, the money spent on troubadours and minstrels “sucking our blood like leeches and flouting their desire for my wife with their shameless verse.”

  As much as Beatrice adores the troubadours—only Sordel remains, and a few others—she does not complain. Charles shares power with her in every way but one: he will not allow her to negotiate with Marguerite. This bothers her until he lays her down and removes her clothes with his slow hands. At those times, she thinks not at all of her sisters. Instead, she begs God, in her heart, to let her keep Charles always.

  “What if you die?” she has taken to asking, lying in his arms. “What will happen to me?”

  His grin skewers her. The gap between his front teeth. His ruffled hair.

  “You would soon find a strapping Sicilian bull to take my spot in your bed.”

  “At least two would be needed to replace you. Perhaps three.” She jests, even with a lump in her throat the size of a broken heart. She has no illusions about her future should Charles be killed in this campaign. Manfred would take her as a hostage, perhaps lock her in a tower or donjon and leave her to die. Would her sisters help her then? Would anyone?

  She has no desire to find out. As she kneels before the cardinals and takes the Holy Communion, she touches the vial around her neck, filled with a sweet and deadly poison. Death before dishonor. Marguerite’s courage in Damietta still reverberates, like a battle cry. Beatrice will be every bit as brave.

  Marguerite

  Never the Enemy

  Paris, 1267

  Forty-six years old

  WERE BEATRICE STILL alive, she would mock Marguerite.

  Are those tears of sorrow or of joy? You wished for this, did you not?

  “Yes,” she says into her handkerchief—only she and Eléonore are in the carriage—“yes, I did wish her dead. But only once, when she reneged on her promise to give Tarascon to me and then left us in Outremer to rot, I thought, or lose our heads to the Saracens. I watched their ship sail away and hoped it might sink to the bottom of the sea.”

  An
d now Beatrice is in the vault, dead of dysentery contracted in the rank Sicilian heat, an ignoble end to a reign begun on a velvet couch in a grand procession just two years ago.

  “I entertained murderous fantasies when I heard that she and Charles were pursuing Sicily,” Eléonore says. “Remember how excited she was? Thinking, as always, of herself. She could be quite maddening.”

  “She was obsessed with queenship,” Marguerite says, dabbing at her cheeks. “That, and her precious Charles.”

  “She seemed not to need anyone’s help. Not as Sanchia did.” Eléonore presses her face into her hands. “I wonder, still, if I should have known Sanchia was dying. If I could have saved her.”

  “Perhaps, if you had not been hiding in the Tower in fear for your own life.” Marguerite cannot help the edge in her voice; she and Eléonore have explored this terrain many times, and they never find anything new in it. “And Sanchia seemed always to complain of one malady or another.”

  “Beatrice said we neglected her. That we should have done more.”

  “Are we physicians? Seers? Beatrice thought queenship conferred magical powers. She discovered the truth before she died, I suppose.”

  “I hear she was admired in Sicily. The poets praised her there. Charles, on the other hand, is despised.” So hated that he could not hold a proper funeral for her in Sicily, for fear he might be attacked.

  Marguerite scowls. “I am sure he is just as cruel to the Sicilians as he has been to the Marseillais. Our sister’s death will be a cause for rejoicing in Provence. Now Charles will have to abdicate, and name Charles the Younger as count.”

  “But he is still a child!”

  “No matter. Papa’s will is clear: when Beatrice dies, her eldest son inherits the county—not her husband.”

  “Charles cannot rule until the boy comes of age?”

  “No. That task falls to Sanchia—or, now, one of us.”

  “Which one, do you suppose?” Eléonore smiles through her tears.

  “I thought—since Paris is nearer—”

  “Please take it. I am fully engaged,” Eléonore says. She and Henry have not completely quashed the rebellion in England. Simon’s death only agitated his supporters, including Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, the self-styled Prince of Wales.

  “Llywelyn is like a child with a stick, prodding a hornet’s nest just to watch the confusion. Every skirmish that flares up, we find he instigated.” She and Henry have given castles to Edmund in Wales, and have sent him there to fight.

  “And Edward?” Her spirits lift at the very thought of him, the brave knight, the bold prince beloved by his people. He is the son Marguerite might have had if not for Louis’s indifference to their children and Blanche’s influence upon them.

  “He is as restless as ever,” she says, sighing, “roaming about with his Marcher friends in search of jousting tournaments.”

  “Jousting? That’s a foolish risk.”

  “Yes, but what son listens to a mother’s counsel anymore?”

  “Especially when the mother is so like the son.” Marguerite smiles. “Remember when Mama likened you to Artemisia?”

  “The warrior queen.” Eléonore smiles. “I remember. I was foolish, too, always eager to prove myself for no good reason, always willing to fight for things that didn’t matter—just like Edward and his tournaments. And yet”—she lowers her voice—“I hate to see him risk his life, and England’s future. His wife is particularly anxious, being so eager to take my place.”

  “That won’t happen for many years,” Marguerite says, putting her arm around her sister.

  “I hope you are right, but I fear that you are not.” Elli’s voice quavers. It occurs to Marguerite: she has not seen her sister cry since she fell off her horse at the age of nine. “Henry is getting old. He has become sickly.”

  “Louis, as well. But I expect he will live long. A lifetime of mortifications have made him immune to death.” And sent his mind staggering from his body, too drunk with pain, apparently, to find its way back. She wonders how he has fared in her absence. Will she find him, again, lying on the chapel floor in his own mess, too sick and exhausted to take his bowels to the toilet?

  But, no, here he comes riding up in full hunting regalia and surrounded by a crowd of fifty men: counts, dukes, bishops, priests, knights. She sees his sallow cheeks, his too-thin body curling like a whip, his mouth open as if he were laughing, which he is not, for he has not laughed since their son died—indeed, not since they returned from Outremer thirteen years ago.

  When they have passed through the palace gates, Eléonore exclaims. “What is this?” Horses, carriages, chariots, nobles and servants fill the courtyard.

  “Jean,” Marguerite breathes.

  “Oh, my,” Eléonore says.

  When the carriage stops and the door opens, Jean bows and kisses Marguerite’s ring—something he would never do for Louis, not being “his man.” He was Marguerite’s man. He still is, judging from the look he gives her.

  “What a pleasant surprise,” he says as he helps her from the carriage, leaving Eléonore to the servants. “I had not expected to see you until the king’s announcement this evening.”

  “Announcement?”

  The clop of horses’ hooves; the clatter of wheels. She turns to see two more carriages and a chariot, with their attendant knights and servants and horses, entering through the gates. “What is happening?” she says.

  “I hoped you could tell me.” He pulls a handkerchief from inside his sleeve and mops his brow. His eyes closed, he takes a deep breath. When he opens them, they appear almost milky.

  “Jean! You are ill. You should be at home.”

  “So I told the king. But he insisted that, even were I on my deathbed, I should come to hear his news.”

  After sending a servant to escort Jean to his chambers, Marguerite steps into the castle, across the floor of the great hall where the hunting party has gathered for the afternoon meal, and up the stairs to Louis’s rooms. She finds him within, embracing Charles, whose arms hang limply by his sides.

  “My condolences over the death of your queen,” Louis says.

  “I am bereft,” Charles says. “I scarcely know what to do without her.” The catch in his voice sounds forced. She meets his hard gaze with her haughty one.

  “You will feel better when you have heard my announcement tonight,” Louis says.

  “Louis,” she says, “my lord. What is this announcement?”

  His smile is as sly as if he has caught her in some deception. “You must wait to hear it, the same as everyone else. Now, if you will excuse me, I must go and pray for God’s guidance.” And then Louis has gone, leaving the two of them.

  “Are you mourning the loss of my sister, or that of Provence?” she says to Charles.

  He frowns. “I am yet the Count of Provence.”

  “Not according to my father’s will.”

  “No,” he says, “but according to the agreement Beatrice signed with me.”

  “What sort of agreement?”

  “It made me Count of Provence in my own right. Our son will inherit, but after I die.”

  Marguerite’s heart begins a slow pumping, as though she were climbing a hill. “Beatrice would not have signed that. She loved our father, and would have respected his wishes.”

  “The only man she loved more was me,” he says. “And that is why I have come to you.” Her hasty burial at Viterbo was necessary for the time being, he says, but it was not what she wanted. “She begged to be laid to rest beside her father.”

  “In the mausoleum I had built for him? That is impossible.” She turns away, twisting her hands. She is too late! Beatrice has already signed away her share of Provence. Her heart feels shrunken, like a shriveled walnut in its shell.

  “Impossible? Why is that? The tomb is certainly large enough. Hadn’t you intended to bury your mother there? Yet she preferred the company of her brothers to that of her husband.” His tone is accusing, as if Mar
guerite were to blame.

  “Your point escapes me.”

  “Your sister’s final wish was to lie between her father and me.”

  “She never considered my wishes. Why should I care about hers?”

  “She adored you. But you couldn’t see it, blinded as you were by greed.”

  “You accuse me of greed?” Her laugh is loud, like Eléonore’s, raucous as a raven’s. “It is time to end this discussion.” She tries again to step around him, but he grabs her by the arms.

  “It would be a pleasure to send you to the jail,” she says. “A single shout from me would do it.”

  “I advise against it.” His eyes are red at their rims, as though he has not slept for days. “You do not want anyone to hear what I am about to say.”

  Then, in a voice raspy and low, he tells Marguerite her secrets. She was seen that night on the voyage home from Outremer, running onto the ship’s deck unclothed with her burning gown. Joinville, too, was seen, through her cabin’s open door. Marguerite begins to perspire.

  “Do not worry. Bartolomeu told no one. When he returned to France, however, he came to me, tormented by guilt and his love for Louis.”

  Marguerite feels suddenly weak, as though she might faint. Yet she cannot sit down, for Charles grips her arms, bruising her. “But you never told Louis,” she says.

  “No. I intended to, for I have never cared for the noble Joinville and I care even less for you. How I would have enjoyed causing your destruction!” He is so near that she can feel his spittle spraying her face. “But I kept your secret. You may thank Beatrice for that. She begged me not to tell.”

  “You agreed out of the goodness of your heart, I suppose.”

  He laughs. “You know me better. She had to give me something in return: a promise. Which she kept until she died, even though she sacrificed your love.”

  The urge to flee rises up; she pushes hard against him, freeing herself from him. She does not want to hear the rest of his sordid story—and yet, she does.