Four Sisters, All Queens (66 page)

She presses her lips together, holding in her cry of dismay. Would he leave her to die, then, at the hands of this mob? But, no. Henry loves her. He is in a fit of temper, that is all.

“We will wait,” she says, “and appeal to him again.”

The shouting subsides. The crowd on the bridge parts. A man in a brown tunic waves red-sleeved arms. “My lady, you may come to shore,” he calls. “I guarantee your safety.”

She recognizes Thomas FitzThomas, the newly elected mayor of London, whom she and Henry fêted only weeks ago.

Knights amass on the bank, forming a fence with their armor beyond which the citizens cannot pass. The anchor hoisted, the boat floats to the bank. Ebulo lifts her out of the vessel and carries her across the mud to the grassy hillock where the rosy-cheeked mayor stands wringing his hands.

“I deeply apologize,” he says. “This is no way to treat our queen.”

He has brought a carriage for her. She folds herself inside. He follows, to her dismay, for she would not be seen trembling with fear.

“I would offer you sanctity in my home, except that it is too modest for your comfort. I have but four rooms and five children.”

Eléonore closes her eyes, hiding her tears. Is this what she is reduced to—begging for lodging in the home of a town dweller? Outside, more shouts arise. There is a banging on the carriage door, then a scream. Eléonore pulls aside the curtain to see Ebulo running his sword through a man’s body. This, she thinks, is the only language these people understand.

Marguerite

The Same Tune

Provence, 1265

Forty-four years old

H
ERE’S WHAT DEATH DOES:
it mortifies us. Marguerite can barely look at her mother’s red-rimmed eyes, her blue and gasping mouth, her flesh sagging so heavily that it seems it might slide off her face. Beatrice of Savoy, the Countess of Provence, was celebrated for her elegance and beauty. She would not choose to be seen like this, not even by her daughters.

But here she lies with her final breath in her teeth and life seeping from her edges, too weak to sit but not too feeble to grip Marguerite’s hand as if she feared she might fall. Beside her, Beatrice weeps—remorseful, Marguerite imagines, for all the pain she and Charles have caused—while Eléonore fusses, fluffing pillows, mopping Mama’s sweating brow, ordering fresh flowers to replace the ones wilting on the bedside stand. Marguerite can only hold her mother’s hand and breathe the stagnant air through parted lips, and force herself to return her mother’s desperate gaze with a comforting smile that, she hopes, holds none of the disgust that she is feeling.

Mama’s lively dark eyes are dimmed. Death’s slow strangle has
reduced her fire to a smolder. Marguerite remembers her laugh—as hearty as a man’s—and the sight of her striding, her skirts lifted, across the hills in Provence with her hawk on her arm, her falconer trotting to keep pace with her. She closes her eyes.

Breathe in—rattle, cough—breathe out. “My boys.” Her endearment for them when they were children. “But where is Sanchia?” A long rattle in her chest, a fit of coughing. Then, a long exhale. “Oh, yes. I shall see her soon.”

“Don’t give up, Mama,” Marguerite urges. She feels limp, as if her spine were dissolving. She sits on the bed, still holding her mother’s hand.

“
You
give up,” Mama says. “Cease this struggle. Beatrice is your sister.”

Marguerite closes her eyes again. She should have known that Mama would do this. She is relentless about anything that she wants.

“This doesn’t seem like the time—” Eléonore begins.

“This is the only time!” Mama snaps, then begins to cough again. The healer rushes in, his thin hair frowsing.

“I told you not to excite her, my ladies.”

“They are not exciting me,” Mama barks. “They are boring me to death.” He ducks out again.

“You have always loved excitement,” Eléonore says. It is true. When they were girls, it was Mama who planned the hunt and who led the chase—tearing after the hounds, jumping over fallen trees and splashing through streams, shouting all the while. She married her daughters to the richest, most powerful men she could find, then spent her life traveling from court to court to challenge and encourage her daughters to greater feats. It was she who stirred the people of Marseille to rebel against Charles’s oppression, and she who continued to fight for her rights in Provence until age sapped her of strength and of health.

“It is not worth the struggle, Margi,” she says. “You are sisters.”

Marguerite will not argue with a dying woman. But Mama will
not let the matter go. “You must join together,” she says. “You must help one another. As men do. Think what you might have done for Sanchia. Poor Sanchia.”

Eléonore colors and nibbles at her lower lip. She would say that she was locked in the Tower of London and could not go to Sanchia. She would say that Richard didn’t tell her that her sister was dying. Marguerite has her own excuses: grief over her son’s death; a kingdom to govern now that Louis has lost interest in this world; her fight, by Eléonore’s side, for the Crown of England; Charles’s attempts to turn her son Philip, now heir to the throne, against her.

Beatrice, on the other hand, is all justification and no remorse. “I am sure I had no part in Sanchia’s death,” she says. “I have been quashing a rebellion in Marseille, as you should know. And”—a fleeting smile—“preparing for Sicily.”

“Sicily?” Eléonore says.

“Charles has been offered the Crown,” Beatrice says.

“And you are going to take it? After all my years of work on Edmund’s behalf?”

Beatrice lifts her chin. “Edmund’s name has been withdrawn. The pope grew tired of waiting for the funds you promised. We, on the other hand, are prepared to send money and troops. Should we forgo the opportunity because you squandered it?”

Marguerite’s laugh is raucous, like the squawk of a crow.

“Squandered?” Eléonore cries. “How dare you? Is it our fault that we have a civil war on our hands?”

“If your husband cannot control his own kingdom, how does he expect to subdue Sicily? Charles has an excellent record in this regard.”

“Yes, subduing is Charles’s specialty,” Marguerite says. “He imposed taxes on the people of Marseille, then used rats to torture those who didn’t pay.”

“At least we have ended the troubles in Provence.”

“At what price? You and Charles have beaten the people down, and now you are reviled.”

Beatrice shrugs. “If popularity were our aim, we would have become minstrels.”

“What is your aim?” Eléonore asks.

“Power. The same as yours.”

“My aim is to help my family, including my sisters,” Eléonore says.

“Yes, you have been such a great help to me,” Beatrice says with a snort. “And to Sanchia, too. She died alone, but I’m sure her heart was warmed by your love and concern.”

“You, on the other hand, will not suffer that fate,” Marguerite retorts. “No one is sending love your way.” She glances at her mother, forgotten now that she has stopped gripping Marguerite’s hand. Mama stares at the ceiling as if she were listening to music far away. Marguerite wants to shake her, to say, See, Mama? Beatrice is the one you need to correct, not me.

But it would do no good, for Mama is beyond seeing and beyond correcting. Her eyes do not blink. Her breath has stopped. Always agitated by her daughters’ disputes, she apparently has decided to leave them behind, once and for all.

A
T THE FUNERAL
mass in the Hautecombe Abbey, the sisters do not speak, not to one another and not to the mourners who fill the cathedral and spill onto the lawn. They have not spoken to one another in days, their tongues bound with the mortification of having bickered over their mother’s deathbed.
Forgive us,
Marguerite prays as Philip, Charles, St. Pol, and a number of other young knights lower Mama’s coffin into its tomb close by where Uncle William lies. Peace was all their mother asked for in the end, yet they could not give it to her for even five minutes.

It is all Beatrice’s fault. She announced Charles’s intentions for Sicily at the worst possible time, as Mama lay dying—and in the presence of Eléonore, whom she knew would be distraught. Of course, she is never happy unless she commands all the attention. Look at her now, sobbing as though Mama’s death were the end
of her world, as though she hadn’t made their mother’s final years miserable by forcing her to leave Provence.

Even Charles looks uncomfortable, squeezing his hands into fists as he holds Beatrice up—wishing he could stuff one of those fists into her wailing mouth, Marguerite supposes. But no, he doesn’t hit Beatrice. She doesn’t duck her head when he comes near, or soften her voice to a tremble, as Sanchia did with Richard. A meek and submissive wife would never satisfy him, for he enjoys the battle even more than the victory. Perhaps that is why he continues to sneer at Marguerite even after he has won the fight for Provence (or so he thinks). Perhaps that is why he has enlisted her son against her, even when she has, for the time being, laid down her arms.

Cease this struggle
. Mama’s admonition still burns her ears, although Marguerite knows she has no reason for shame. She is doing what she must. With her son Louis dead and her husband Louis always ill, Philip may find himself King of France very soon—and Marguerite may find herself without a home or an adequate income.