Four Sisters, All Queens (52 page)

Eléonore rushes after him. She finds him brooding at a window, silhouetted in the evening light.

“How dare you speak to me that way, Henry,” she says quietly.

“How dare you speak to
me
that way, Eléonore?”

“Henry, you know I’m in the right. Your brothers—”

“I know nothing of the sort! My brothers are tired of being treated like vassals to your uncles. They, the sons of a queen!”

“The bishop of Winchester is subservient to the archbishop of Canterbury,” Eléonore says. “No matter their parentage.”

“Boniface of Savoy thinks everyone subservient to him.”

“Among the English clergy, everyone is.”

“And he comes to me complaining of violence—after nearly killing that old man over his right to inspect a monastery! Do you remember that?”

“Your brothers were wrong to challenge him, and wrong to harm his men.”

“And you? Weren’t you wrong to challenge me over the Flamstead appointment?”

“Apparently not, since I prevailed in court today.”

His eyes veer as if, having lost the point, he is searching for it somewhere in the room.

“You hate my brothers.”

“No, I—”

“Yes!” His laugh is triumphant. “You have hated them since the day they arrived in London. Don’t bother protesting. I saw it in your eyes then, and I still see your hatred whenever William or Aymer comes around. But why, Eléonore? Why?”

“You might ask that question of your brothers. It is they who treat me as a competitor for your love.”

“There is no competition,” he growls.

“You have made that abundantly clear.” Tears spring to her eyes. She turns away so that he cannot see.

“At least they do not continually challenge me on every decision, humiliating me before my subjects.”

“What do you know about humiliation?” she snarls, turning on
him. “You, who have debased me before all of England with your red-haired whore!”

His eyes bulge. His mouth opens and shuts, as if he were a fish yanked from the sea.

“I saw her walking the streets of Charing today in the mantle I gave to you. I thought one of the servants had stolen it! But when I approached her—”

“You approached her? By God, Eléonore!”

“Yes, and why not? I never imagined that you would betray me, let alone with that sad and tawdry tramp.”

His face whitens like a fish’s underbelly. “You are mistaken. The mantle was someone else’s. I hope you did not make a public scene.”

“Do not insult me.” She turns and runs from his room to her own, snatches up the torn mantle, runs back to him. He stares at her as if someone—or something—were dying. Or already dead.

“See for yourself.” She thrusts the mantle to him. He examines it as if looking for clues to exonerate him.

“How did this become torn?”

“I ripped it off her neck.”

“You did not.”

“I did. I would have started on her face next, the insolent
chienne
. She actually mocked me, Henry! I would have ripped her into shreds but for the knights you sent with me.”

“I cannot believe this of you. Is this any way for a queen to behave?”

“And what of a king’s behavior? Is it acceptable for you to roll in the gutter with the filth of this kingdom? By God’s head, if you’re going to be unfaithful, choose a noblewoman, or even one of our servants!”

“Any of them would be preferable to the man I’m married to now.”

“Someone must be the man.”

A vein in his neck begins to pulse. His eyes hold a crazed look. Eléonore knows she has gone too far. She waits for the explosion.

“How high does the arrogance of woman rise if it is not restrained!” he screams. “I want you out of London. Now!”

“Why, so you can see
her
?”

“Get out. Tonight.”

“You want me to leave? Truly?” She presses a hand to her fluttering chest. “Where am I to go?”

“As far away from me as possible.”

“I-I’ll stay here with the children, then. You can go back to Westminster.”

“You are banished. Get out tonight, out of London, and do not return until I say you may. If ever.”

She sits on the bed, gripping the coverings, reminding herself to breathe but not doing it. If he divorces her, she will lose the children. She will not be able to help them—for Henry will remarry, and his new queen will advance her own offspring. Edmund will lose the chance to become King of Sicily, for Henry will certainly squander it with his temperamental outbursts and impulsive decisions. Edward will lose Gascony to Richard of Cornwall. Her daughter Beatrice will marry a much lesser man than she would with Eléonore’s influence.

“Henry, do not do this.” She lifts pleading eyes to him. “The children need me. And I need you.”

“You should have thought of that before insulting me. Before usurping me. And do not think of absconding, by the way. I am confiscating your gold and your lands.”

“But where am I to go?”

“What do I care where you go? Go to Winchester.”

“There is nothing for me in Winchester, Henry.” She sounds far away, like a plaintive child, even to her own ears.

“Yes, yes. Winchester is where I’ll send you.” His grin looks eerie. “And while you’re there, do pay a visit to the bishop-elect. My brother Aymer will be exceedingly glad to welcome you.”

Beatrice

Pearls in the Same Oyster

Paris, 1254

Twenty-three years old

S
HE AND
C
HARLES
are the last to arrive at court, for Charles refused to leave Provence until every last Cathar had been burned and their ashes shipped to Rome, “to assure the pope that we are on his side.” Killing them wasn’t enough, however; Charles insisted she watch them burn with him so that no one could ever accuse them of heresy. The screams of those poor people and the gag-sweet smell of their burning flesh will never leave her—and neither, Charles promised, will the pope’s gratitude.

“He will repay us in full measure, my love,” Charles said.

How he can be so sanguine about taking lives is a mystery to Beatrice, whose father was a noted warrior but who was also kind and gentle with his people. Yes, he sent troops for the pope’s Albigensian campaign, but reluctantly, and he anguished the rest of his life over the brutal tortures and killings of the Cathars. Had they come to Ramon Berenger for help as they did to her and Charles, her parents would have fed them, listened to their plight, suggested they abandon their heretical beliefs and adopt the religion of the Church, and sent them home again. When she pointed this out to Charles, he laughed.

“Your father struggled in poverty until he died,” he said. “Do you desire a similar fate?”

If one is to achieve greatness, Charles says, one must embrace cruelty. One must be willing to kill, or be killed. One must be willing to betray others—even sisters or brothers, as she and Charles are doing now in their secret negotiations for the crown of Sicily. It has already been promised to her sister Eléonore’s son Edmund, “but he is a little boy, and the Church needs a man on the throne,” Charles pointed out.

Family comes first, Mama says. Beatrice has never questioned this fact, but she wonders: Which family? She has sisters on two thrones, cousins and aunts and uncles on others.

“I am your family,” Charles says. “I and our three children, and the many others you will bear to me.” This is his reply whenever she asks to give Tarascon to Margi.

But she does not ask him for that anymore. He made sure of it the day Louis’s chamberlain Bartolomeu le Roie came to him aquiver, tormented, he said, by a terrible sight on the journey home from Outremer: the queen Marguerite running naked from her chambers with a burning nightgown, and, lying in her bed, the seneschal of Champagne, Sir Jean de Joinville. To tell King Louis would break his heart, for he loves Sir Joinville as a brother, but keeping this secret to himself is surely treason.

“I told him he had done right in coming to me,” Charles said to Beatrice as he picked his teeth after supper that night. “It will be easier on Louis to hear it from a brother.”

“You’re not going to tell him!” But of course he would. Charles was a little boy when Marguerite came to court, his mother’s baby. He hated Marguerite because Blanche hated her, and he goaded and tormented her until she hated him, too.

“I can well imagine the Most Pious King’s shock upon learning that his wife is a whore.” He chuckled. “I hope he turns her out without delay. I used to fantasize about seeing Miss High and Mighty on her knees, begging.”

“He wouldn’t turn her out. She is the mother of his children.”

“An evil influence that ought to be eradicated. Did you know? She sent my mother out of the palace for reading a psalter to them. Why the glum expression, darling? Do you love her so much? She cares nothing for you.”

Beatrice thought of Marguerite’s cool hand on her hot brow, the moist cloths she placed on her cheeks and neck as she struggled to give birth in the sweltering Egyptian heat. The concern and—yes, love!—in her eyes. She thought of Marguerite bleeding on the boat that carried them to meet the Egyptian queen, pulling the blood-soaked linen from between her legs and rinsing it in the Nile, then stuffing the wet cloth into her trousers again. She thought of Marguerite standing proud before the queen Shajar al-Durr, bearing herself most regally even as the blood drained from her face and into her cloths again. She saved baby Blanche’s life and she saved Louis’s life, and she does not deserve to be dispossessed no matter what Charles thinks.

“Don’t tell King Louis about Marguerite and Sir Jean. Please, Charles.”

He bent down to peer under the chair, lifted up a cushion. “I am looking for my wife, the beautiful and ruthless Beatrice of Provence,” he said. “Have you seen her?”

“Charles, please. She is my sister.”

“She would have to stop harassing you about Tarascon then, wouldn’t she? Without a kingdom, she would have no power. Pope Innocent would toss her petitions against us into the fire. That alone would be worth the breaking of my brother’s heart.” He smacked his lips as if enjoying a flavorful dish.