Four Sisters, All Queens (62 page)

Never mind that Eléonore and Henry are still begging for funds for the battle against Manfred. No one grieved more than her sister when Uncle Thomas died earlier this year, leaving unfulfilled his promise to pay Pope Alexander the rest of the sum he demanded. Beatrice and Charles pounced on the opportunity—not for Edmund, but for themselves.

But when was Beatrice ever moved to help her sisters? She might have been forced to marry Charles, but now she openly supports his schemes. How can she bear to look at him? Always preening that long hair of his, displaying himself like a peacock, as though he didn’t know that his nose is beaked and his eyes set too closely together. And his cruelty! The stories make her shudder: A boy of twelve whipped to unconsciousness for making a jest about the size of Charles’s nose. Villeins turned out of their homes with nowhere to go, punished for a poor harvest after a season of drought. Merchants executed in Marseille for protesting his enormous tax increases. The troubadours banished from court, Charles having declared music and poetry—more dear than food in her father’s court—to be a frivolous expense.

Disloyal though it may be, she hopes Charles loses Sicily, for no tyrant should rule over those pleasant folk. She would give Eléonore and Henry all she owns to thwart his ambitions. The French treasury is only now recovered from the campaign in Outremer, however, and Louis insists on hoarding every coin. “We will need a great deal of money soon,” he says mysteriously.

If saving money is Louis’s concern, then he should be grateful to her for the treaty he and King Henry are about to sign. After decades of squabbling over the lands King John lost to France and years of pleading from their wives, the two have at last agreed to stop fighting. Neither will gain everything he wants: Henry will not give up all the disputed lands, but he will be content with Gascony, Saintonge, and a few other territories. In exchange, France has promised to help England during this time when it teems with troubles. Louis would rather see Henry and Eléonore abandon all claims on this side of the channel, but he also wants an end to the costly battles between them.

“Now our children will be as brothers and sisters, all as one family,” he says to Henry.

All as one family. Marguerite and Eléonore link arms as they and their husbands lead the way into the great hall, their sisters and brothers-in-law behind. No more will they be parted from
each other because their kingdoms are at war. Henry and Louis beam at each other like sweethearts.

Mama awaits them in the hall, her bearing so regal that one might think she were a queen, as well. A queen, however, does not sell her people to a tyrant as Mama has done. Marguerite stiffens her body against her mother’s embrace and wishes she could conjure lightning in her kiss, or a snowstorm.

“This is a great moment, and you girls are to be thanked for it,” Mama says to her and Eléonore. “After two hundred years of fighting, peace comes to France and England at last. The men may claim the credit, but I know who did most of the work.”

“We learned from the best, Mama.” Mama widens her smile, apparently missing the dryness in Marguerite’s tone. “You’ve signed a pact in Provence, too, I hear.”

Mama wrinkles her forehead. “Don’t blame me, darling.”

“Whom should I blame?”

“I had no choice. I could not keep up my castles without an income.”

“So you sold them over to Charles.”

“And Beatrice. Your father wanted—”

“He wanted Provence to remain independent!” She lowers her voice. “Not sold to France for five thousand marks.”

“Per year. And I have sold my share to Beatrice and Charles. Not to France.”

“But the money has come from the King of France. You wouldn’t accept Charles’s coin.”

“I don’t trust him. Surely you can see why.”

“And I don’t trust you!” Her words come out in a hiss. “Not any more. Not after this.” Is that a smirk on Charles’s lips? And is he escorting Beatrice to the royal table? She sweeps across the hall to them.

“Your table is here.” She gestures to the front table on the floor, at the foot of the dais where she, Eléonore, Sanchia, and their husbands will sit. Beatrice narrows those green cat’s eyes. Marguerite shrugs. “I am sorry, but you are still not a queen.”

No matter that a man who is not a king has been seated at their table. Thomas of Aquino, the famous regent of theology at the University of Paris, sits on Louis’s left, with Henry on his other side. He is a dour-looking man, his frown deepening the prominent cleft in his chin. He appears older than his years by virtue of the tonsure on his head, fringed by tight curls. Albertus Magnus, now in Cologne, sends fond greetings to the king, he is saying.

“Albertus has spent many hours in this court discussing the compatibility of science with religion,” Louis says. He gives a rare chuckle. “He vexed my mother sorely, God rest her soul.”

“Women are not easily able to grasp such matters,” the scholar says. “As The Philosopher said, ‘the female is a misbegotten male.’”

“Misbegotten?” Marguerite says. “Did God err in the creation of woman, then?” Louis cuts his eyes at her in annoyance.

“Heavens, no!” The little man’s eyebrows shoot up. “Nothing created by God is imperfect. We might also translate Aristotle’s words to mean ‘unfinished.’ God chose to omit certain . . . attributes . . . from woman’s body for the sake of procreation. It is the sacrifice of woman for the sake of man, one might say.”

“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.