Four Sisters, All Queens (51 page)

He is not a gracious loser. What else should one expect from a man who was given everything as a child? Knowing this, however, does not incline her to defer to him in any contest. She is too competitive for that—a trait that, once upon a time, he admired in her.

She expected his petulance today. So why does her chest feel so heavy, as though she carried a great stone around her neck? Going to Windsor—home, where her children live—will lift her spirits, beginning with the ride. The day is fine, although a bit chilly, and her horse steps lively, proud, she imagines, of its new saddle elaborately embroidered with the white roses she loves—her emblem—and studded all around with gold.

“Let’s show you off,” she says, stroking its soft mane. Riding through the neighborhoods of London will also give Eléonore the chance to show off her splendid new gown of blue silk from Paris.

Flanked by knights and seven of her ladies, Eléonore’s horse trots along the broad, tree-lined avenues near the palace where London’s merchants have built elegant mansions in recent years—prompting complaints from the Earl of Gloucester. “Soon they will be wearing silk and calling themselves ‘Sir,’ and the distinctions of nobility will be obscured,” he pouted. A man steps out of his home and bows to her; his tunic, she notes, is not only silk but purple, as well—a color usually worn only by royalty. If only Gloucester were here to see.

The knight Sir Thomas turns to her. “We’re approaching Charing, my lady.” The district of London reserved for brothels. “It is no place for a queen.”

To pass around it would delay their arrival at Windsor by an hour. After Henry’s outburst, she yearns for her children’s hugs and kisses; she hungers to hold them in her lap, to hear them say, “I love you.”

“As I am surrounded by knights, I hardly feel endangered by prostitutes and petty thieves,” she says, and quickens her horse’s pace to lead the way down the center of the Charing Road. Perhaps she will spy a baron here, or, better yet, William de Valence, arm in arm with scandal.

The knights crowd around her as the houses change from spacious and light to narrow and dark, houses whose second stories jut so far over the road that they nearly blot out the sky. Behind them, along meager and muddy alleys, ramshackle homes rot into the ground along with piles of food scraps, offal, and excrement wafting an inglorious stench. Eléonore blinks her eyes against the burn. Inside these squalid homes live presumably squalid lives, judging by the children squishing their feet in the dirty muck and the smiling, dirt-matted dogs. A man with hair like cobwebs scrounges for food in the trash heaps, eliciting a tossed coin from Eléonore that he fails to notice. As the procession moves into an
area of shops, the street writhes with activity: Children chase dogs. A young woman sells fruit from a basket. Horses and donkeys pull carts. A boy with Eléonore’s silver coin in his fist jumps over puddles, dodging the grasping hands of the trash heap scavenger. A woman with loose red hair wears the prostitute’s yellow-striped hood, yet looks out of place in a silk-and-ermine robe like the one Eléonore gave to Henry—

“Stop!” She slides off her horse and strides over to the red-haired woman, ignoring the calls of her knights. Her shoes scatter gravel and English mud as she walks,
her
mud, for she and Henry own every inch of ground in the kingdom as well as the mantle on this woman’s back.

“You have something that belongs to me,” she says to the woman. She eyes the clasp: a golden lion with bejeweled eyes, specially made for Henry.

The woman plants her hands on her hips. “Do you think so?”

Eléonore touches the soft fur around the mantle’s edge. “I gave this to my husband. As a gift.”

The woman throws back her head and laughs. Eléonore glances around to see two of her knights approaching as well as a gathering group of onlookers.

“I doubt that, pet,” the prostitute says. “I got this from the King of England.”

“From one of his servants, you mean. I’m very sorry. It was not his to give.”

“I got it from the king himself.” She straightens her back. “He said the eyes remind him of me, and the golden mane.”

“Now you are the one making dubious claims.” Although she can imagine Henry’s saying such a thing. He once oozed with sentiment.

“‘But Henry,’ I said, ‘you are the lion.’ And do you know what he said?” A smile tugs at her lips. “He said, ‘Maisey, you are the
coeur de lion
.’”

“That is impossible!” Eléonore’s voice rises. She tugs at the mantle. “As your queen, I demand this mantle from you.”

“Not
my
queen.” The prostitute sneers. “Only an Englishwoman could claim that title.” She jerks out of Eléonore’s grasp and begins to walk away—but Eléonore seizes the mantle and jerks hard, yanking her backward.

“Give it to me now,” she grunts. The woman slaps at her with flapping hands, more like the attack of an injured bird than a lion, knocking Eléonore’s headdress to the dirt. Cheers arise from the crowd: “Give it to her, Maisey! Show her what we think of foreigners!” A ripping sound; the woman falls as the cloth tears free from the clasp. The crowd presses close; someone tries to seize the mantle from Eléonore’s hands but the knights are upon them, swords drawn, pushing everyone back and asking Eléonore if she wants the prostitute taken into custody. On the contrary, Eléonore says; this woman is to be banished from the royal court.

“Aren’t you going to pay me for that?” the prostitute says, struggling to her feet—but Sir Thomas knocks her down again.

“Show respect to the Queen of England,” he says.

“That robe was given to me for services rendered,” the woman says. “My lady.”

Eléonore opens her purse and pours its contents onto the street, a stream of silver, then turns and walks away, ignoring the shouts of the crowd.

“A few coins?” the woman cries after her. “Is this all you have to give?”

S
HE CRADLES
E
DMUND
in her lap, arms around him as if he were a doll, rocking and singing. Waiting for Henry to arrive. “The heart of the lion,” he called her—the endearment he uses—once used—for Eléonore. All that garish red hair, her bad teeth. That roll of flesh about her middle, the creases in her neck. The shouts from the people:
Better an English whore than Eléonore!
This is the doing of England’s barons. Angered by Henry’s awarding of lands, castles, and advantageous marriages to his “foreign” Lusignan brothers, the barons have taken their resentment to the streets,
stirring discontent among those with the least reason to care about lands, castles, or aristocratic daughters. She fans her face with her hand, dabs at the perspiration on her upper lip.

Better a whore than Eléonore?

Really, Henry?

“What’s the matter, Mama?” Edmund, sick again, half asleep in her arms, pats her face. “Don’t cry, Mama. I will get better soon.”

She rocks him and remembers their wedding night, the poetry Henry murmured as he covered her young body with his hands and lips:

Lady, I’m yours, today, every day,/ In your service my self I’ll keep,/ Sworn, and pledged to you complete,/ As I have been always in everything.

“
And as you are first of joys to me, so the last joy too you will be/ As long as I’m still living,
” she whispers, finishing the song, heedless of the tears dropping now onto her sleeping son’s hair.

She remembers Richard’s words on the night of Sanchia’s churching, that love is the delicate oil and marriage the vinegar. He was wrong, she told her sister. Love can go hand in hand with marriage. Passion can be sustained for as long as both husband and wife desire. She was confident, then, in her power to hold Henry’s interest. But quarrels have taken a toll. Henry’s tendency to blame others for his errors has fallen hard on her: Simon’s troubles in Gascony and his dispute with Henry over Eleanor’s dowry are, according to him, partly her fault. She agrees that Henry should pay them what he has promised, and so he accuses her of fueling the argument. But when she declined to testify for the Montforts, did he appreciate her support? He seemed not even to notice. If anything, his esteem for her has diminished.

And yet, she is the same as she has ever been—and, in some areas, much improved. Her figure is more voluptuous, her face more beautiful, her dress more fashionable than when she first came to him. She excels in the hunt, which once brought him delight. She continues to write poems for him, which used to
please him, but now he shows little interest in hearing them. He complains that she meddles too much in the affairs of the kingdom, while formerly he included her in every decision. Of course, that was before the Lusignans came to London.

A red-haired whore is the least of her concerns. At least Henry is not going to replace her with such a woman—although she wishes he would be more discreet. Yet to discuss the matter with him will do her no good. He will neither accept blame nor apologize. Instead, she will work harder to attract him, starting tonight. She will fill her chamber with candlelight, bathe and perfume her body and hair, perhaps sing for him as he used to enjoy. She will see the fires burning in his eyes tonight, perhaps to stoke the passion in his heart again.

When he enters the nursery that afternoon, she stands to greet him with a kiss—but he turns aside. “Your uncle Boniface has just arrived,” he says. “With a complaint, of course.”

Eléonore doesn’t know what this means. Her uncle has not complained to them before. She rises to don her crown and follow Henry into the great hall. They take their seats, and Boniface steps in, red-faced and sullen, looking much less handsome than usual, with Uncle Peter at his side.

“A most distressing incident has occurred,” he says. “A direct challenge to my authority as archbishop of Canterbury, and a serious breach of our laws.”

“You have authority in this matter,” Henry says. “Why must you come to me?” He does not like to be disturbed at Windsor.

“Because, Your Grace”—Uncle Boniface sends a warning look to Eléonore—“the offender is your brother, Aymer de Lusignan.”

While Boniface was in Rome last month, meeting with the pope, Aymer—still awaiting confirmation of his appointment as bishop of Winchester—appointed a new prior to the hospital of St. Thomas at Southwark.

“He exceeded his authority, as my official, Eustace, informed him, but he would not listen. So Eustace excommunicated your brother’s appointee and took him into custody until my return.”

Henry’s face flushes. “A dire action,” he says. “An overreaction, I should say.”

“How else to stop him from taking the hospital over?” Eléonore says. “Aymer should be grateful that
he
was not excommunicated.”

“As he would have been,” Boniface says, “if not for his relation to the king.”

Henry’s sister Alice and his brothers Guy and William compounded the offense by sending armed knights to Aymer’s aid. “One week after the prior’s arrest, these men beat the guards at Maidstone with clubs and axe handles and set the prisoner free.”

Henry chuckles. “My brothers and I all seem to have a bit of our mother in us.”

“They then rode to the chapel at Lambeth and seized poor Eustace and some of my servants. They treated them very badly, beat them until they were nearly unconscious and left them in the road.”

“In the road!” Eléonore says with a gasp. “At Lambeth!”

“Without horses or weapons.”

“They might have been killed!” The road at Lambeth teems with robbers and murderers.

“But they weren’t killed, were they?” Henry asks.

“No, Your Grace.”

“So, no serious harm was done.”

“No serious harm?” Eléonore cries.

“Your Grace,” Peter says, “your brothers snubbed not only the archbishop’s authority but yours, as well, since you nominated Boniface to his position. If you do not censure them, you will lose respect from your barons as well as your lesser subjects.”

“So I am to sacrifice my own kin for the sake of the barons’ esteem?” Henry’s laugh is incredulous.

Is she hearing him correctly? “Henry, respectability is essential if you are to govern.”

“I don’t recall asking for your advice,” Henry says through gritted teeth. He stands and, to everyone’s surprise, turns his back on the Savoyard uncles as well as his wife and walks across the floor to his chambers.