The Sister Queens (24 page)

M
ARGUERITE
A
PRIL 1245
P
ONTOISE
, F
RANCE

I
sit in the gardens, utterly exhausted. We have been recruiting, Louis and I. Enthusiasm for his crusade burns in the king like a flame. But it has been precious hard to ignite the same passion in others. The Holy Father is more interested in crusading against Emperor Frederick, and would have Louis join him. But all His Holiness’s cajoling has failed to turn my husband in that direction. Louis will not be dissuaded from the Holy Land by anyone. So we work to enlist the support of our vassals.
We
work. It seems that my decision to take the cross is helping my husband. Men are more inclined to go far from home if they can take their wives with them as a source of comfort. A fact which, sadly, seems to mystify my husband. But never mind that, as, since I am useful to his efforts, I am much in favor at present.

I could be quite content if it were not for the English. In Louis’s eagerness to broaden the support for his crusade, he sent a call for knights to my sister’s kingdom. No one is coming. The English, it seems, still sting from their defeat in Poitou, though two years have passed. I cannot account for it, however I try, and it goads me. After all I did to soften Louis’s view of the English king and his followers! I own I expected Eleanor to be grateful. But why should I have? Eleanor has cared more for winning than any person I have
known since she was a slip of a girl. Control of her temper came only with age, and well can I remember lying facedown on a path in my mother’s garden with Eleanor on top of me, fists flailing, because I had beaten her in some childish pastime. So, while the personal amity between Eleanor and me was restored shortly after the peace, my sister declines to push her husband or his knights to crusade with my husband.

I sigh, tired of worrying about my sister’s obstinacy. Leaning back on the stone bench, I turn my face upward to the weak April sun and close my eyes. I imagine how much warmer the sun must be at Aix as I wait for Marie who has gone to get me a cloak and Yolande who will bring a small stool for my feet, insisting that, given my condition, they should be off the cold ground.

I hear a crunching on the gravel path.

“Your Majesty.”

My eyes fly open and my head snaps up. The Seneschal of Champagne is standing not five feet from where I sit. “Sieur de Joinville!” I am normally known for my elocution, but the name comes out very haltingly indeed.

“Forgive me, Your Majesty. I did not mean to startle you. You are looking very well.”

I am suddenly, horribly, conscious of my appearance. Only weeks away from giving birth, I am like a ripe pear, and no amount of finery donned for my meetings with visiting nobles can disguise the fact. I have not seen Jean de Joinville in four years, and now for him to see me like this!

“I am very close to my confinement,” I blurt out, without considering either the appropriateness of my comment or its superfluous nature.

“So I see.” De Joinville laughs. As the laughter is warm and lacks any touch of ridicule, it relaxes rather than offends me. “His
Majesty must be delighted. Sadly, I have not yet had the pleasure of being a father.”

“What are you doing here?” I ask, again heedless of propriety.

“Well, I hear there is to be a crusade.” His eyes sparkle teasingly. He is more mature now; his jaw firmer; his stance more confident. He is altogether charming.

“You will join us?” I feel my cheeks grown warm with pleasure. I could say they do so because every man Louis gathers behind his banner is important, but I would be lying.

“How could I fail to when I heard that my queen was going? I am at least as brave as she is.”

“Then His Majesty and I shall see more of you.”

“Most assuredly.”

Oh, how I wish the
nefs
were ready at this moment. But as it is, even the port from which they will eventually sail is not completed.

Before either of us can speak again, there is a sound of someone approaching. Marie and Yolande round a nearby corner. Marie says nothing. She sees only a seneschal conversing with his queen.

Yolande, however, has wise eyes. “It seems we have left Your Majesty too long.” She bustles forward and gives de Joinville a sharp look before continuing. “You ought to be inside where it is warmer.”

Instead of putting down the stool tucked under her arm, she reaches out to help me rise. But I will have none of that. I am no invalid to be hauled up. I rise unaided and, I hope, gracefully despite my size and shape.

“You will excuse me, Sieur.”

“Of course, Your Majesty.” He gives a bow, then waits respectfully for my ladies and me to pass. Do I imagine it, or as we do so, does his hand brush the skirt of my gown?

THIS TIME I REALLY AM
dying. It is not the pain that tells me so. The pain of birth no longer has the ability to either surprise or terrify me. No, it is the tone of the murmurings, and the expressions on faces around me that tell me something is wrong. Faces that include Louis’s. Louis has never before been with me during my lyings-in. It is neither a man’s place nor a king’s. There is a false brightness in Louis’s looks. It has been there ever since he entered. I wonder who summoned him.

At first all seemed well. I was struck with my pains midmorning and took to my bed around midday. My midwife rubbed my belly and the insides of my legs with oil, and all the women who faithfully attend me at such times gathered about. From that point it was expected I would deliver quickly. The milk was warmed for the washing of a new child. It is too early in the year for rose petals.

After what seems like an eternity of pushing, my baby still has not come. Lying limp in another short, blissful, lull between pains, I feel a sudden sting as the midwife opens a vein at my ankle to bleed me. Elisabeth is praying audibly to Saint Margaret. I close my eyes.

“What ails her?” The voice is Louis’s, and the concern is gratifyingly real.

“Your Majesty, the child is prodigiously large. Much larger than His Highness the prince. The position is good, but Her Majesty’s strength fails. I think we must pull the child forth.”

“Then do so.”

I can feel the woman’s hand upon me and then inside me. The ordinary agony of such a thing seems oddly muted, though my eyes do spring open and find Louis’s face. He looks pale as death.

Yolande and Matilda raise me from my prone position,
propping my back up against pillows at the head of my bed. The next pain grips me, they pull back upon my knees, and once more I strain to produce the baby. As I do so, I feel a sudden and excruciating pressure. The midwife has tied something around the babe within me, and she is pulling with all her strength. I can see the muscles in her sinewy arms shining with sweat and effort in the fading red-colored daylight. I scream wildly and stop pushing, but to no effect. The midwife is relentless.

“Push,” she cries.

And when I do not, Yolande places both her hands on my belly and presses with all her might, while the midwife hauls the child out of me inch by agonizing inch.

Then I am gone.

When I regain consciousness, my first thought is that there is blood everywhere—all about me, on my legs, on my sheets.

Louis has hold of my hand. “We have another prince,” he says, his blue eyes searching my face. What is he looking for? “I do not know if she hears me.”

Yolande leans over me, and I try to focus my eyes on her. “She breathes.”

“There has been much blood lost.”

I cannot locate the figure attached to this voice.

Suddenly there is someone beside Louis. It is the dragon. Her voice I hear all too clearly. “Come away, Your Majesty. You can do nothing here.” She has her hand on Louis’s shoulder; he turns toward her. Again she admonishes him, “Come.” He rises.

“No!” Without knowing how I got so, I am sitting up. “I see how it is! Whether in living or in dying you will not let me see my lord!”

Louis turns back, a look of panicked contrition on his face. I have won.

But then I know no more.

When I awake, it is dear Yolande’s face hovering above me, not His Majesty’s.

“Am I dead?” The sound of my own voice brings me an answer, for surely if I were a corpse being prepared for burial, I could not speak.

“No indeed,” Yolande replies. “Though it was with greatest difficulty that the midwife brought you round.” She sounds almost smug. “Once she did, His Majesty would not leave you but ordered his mother from your rooms in a tone I have never heard before.”

I can remember none of this.

Perhaps sensing as much, Yoland continues. “You delivered three days ago.” She offers me something to drink. “Prince Philippe is a magnificent child.” She smiles again.

Philippe? Who is Philippe? She must mean my little Louis. Then I recollect myself. “Is that what the king calls him?”

“Indeed. After Philippe Augustus who was also a mighty thing.”