The Sister Queens (27 page)

E
LEANOR
F
EBRUARY 1246
L
ONDON
, E
NGLAND

I
am reeling.

“How can this be?” Henry’s voice shakes with anger. “We have only just dispatched our letter protesting the terms of your father’s will to His Holiness, and Louis of France already has the Countess of Provence married off to his brother!”

Henry waves the pages in his hand at me. His breath rises, ragged and visible in the cold air. We are having a bitter winter; even indoors one cannot keep warm a dozen feet beyond the fireside. There was ice on the water in my ewer this morning.

I have seen Henry angry before, many times. I have even seen him angry with me. Yet the look on his flushed face unnerves me. “The French push their borders southward while I, like a man sleeping, continue to offer alms in honor of your dead father! I feel the very fool.” He pauses again to peer at me. His eyes are full of mistrust. “Madam, do you mean to tell me that you had no inkling? You who hear from the Queen of France so often?”

“Henry! How can you think it?” The accusation that I glimpsed in his eyes now hangs in the air. My tears flow, but they are angry tears. We have been betrayed.
I
have been betrayed. By my family!

“And the four thousand marks I lent to your mother, monies we could ill afford, what is to secure that loan when Charles d’Anjou has my five castles?”

I have no answer. I am too angry to speak in any event. How
could
Marguerite and my mother! Did they actively plan this treacherous marriage or merely attend it? And my uncles! Besides
word of my sister Beatrice’s hasty wedding, my husband’s agents brought rumors that Uncle Boniface attended meetings at which our rights—we his greatest patrons—were effectively destroyed. My Savoyard kin have thrown themselves onto the side of France and into disfavor with my kingly husband, disregarding everything I have done to forward them. Well, I cannot worry about them. I must act to save myself lest I be lumped with the rest of my family in Henry’s fury.

As if reading my fears, Henry says, “When this weather breaks, madam, I suggest you take yourself to Windsor. I look at you and see a Savoyard.”

A Savoyard—this term was never an insult before. My relationship to the house of Savoy was one of my great attractions when Henry sought to marry me. Since then he has benefited by my connections, most recently in a treaty with my uncle, the Count Amadeus of Savoy. And suddenly I am both inspired and enlightened.

“Well then, see the Count of Savoy, your newest vassal,” I say. This must be the reason that Uncle Peter worked so furiously to secure that treaty—to give Henry something even as something, unbeknownst to us, was being taken away. I cannot approve of such duplicity, but I can and do grudgingly admire it. “See our new castles in the Alps, with all their advantages.

“If the Queen of France and her husband injure you, surely I am not guilty. I swear she is no sister of mine when she brings Your Majesty grief. I shall not send her another letter!”

Henry knows what such a pledge means, for he has watched me write countless missives to my sister these ten years and teased me as I waited impatiently for Marguerite’s replies. He remains silent, but I see a softening in his eyes. As he looks at me, I feel certain that he sees the wife who loves him rather than a woman whose family has behaved so shockingly.

I press my advantage. “I see that Your Majesty is determined to judge and condemn me by the sins of others. I will go then and tend to our sons. They may be young, but they are wise enough to recognize that I place them always before myself. It is unfortunate that their father does not accord me the same credit.” I rise from the fireside, letting the fur throw I had tucked over my lap fall to the ground. I have covered less than half the distance between my seat and the door when Henry steps in front of me.

“Eleanor, my heart, I know you are loyal.” He reaches out a hand to me and, when I lay my own in his, pulls me into an embrace.

M
ARGUERITE
M
AY 1246
M
ELUN
, F
RANCE

“I
f only I could forgo this investiture,” I say, wincing slightly as Marie crosses my plaited hair at the back of my head with more vigor than usual.

Yolande hands Marie a crespine amply studded with jewels, then gives me a wicked smile and says, “Would you miss the Count d’Anjou kneeling before you and the king to pay homage for Anjou and Maine?”

“No indeed, Lady Dreux, that will be the most pleasant moment of the affair. You well know I will delight in seeing my brother on his knees. If only we could devise a method of keeping him there.”

Yolande and my ladies laugh. I join them, but inside I am seething. To see my detested brother-in-law Charles knighted—made Lord of Vendôme, and Vicomte de Laval and de Mayenne—and to celebrate him is like putting salt in a wound, particularly as the titles are belated wedding presents. And to see my sister Beatrice is like poison. Her marriage cost me dearly, and I do not think of my lost ten-thousand-marks dowry, monies that the new Count and Countess of Provence have made clear they have no intention of paying. No, I have forfeited something far more precious than silver. Because of Beatrice, I have lost Eleanor. I have not had a letter from her in four months.

I cannot blame Eleanor; I know how it looks. I have written reams. Written until my hand cramped, trying to explain that my personal claims in Provence have been set aside along with hers; that I am not to blame for the reports we receive—reports of Charles stealing castles and diverting fees that are rightfully property of our mother. These reports sicken me. But I am sure that all Eleanor sees and hears is that France will have Provence and that the Capets reach their grasping hands into Midi.

I watch with satisfaction in my mirror as my crown is placed on my head, and I hold out my hands so that Yolande can slide on my most impressive rings. Unlike Eleanor, I am not known for extravagant habits of dress, but a lesson must be taught. I will use the occasion of her husband’s knighting to show Beatrice her place, not only in the hierarchy of the French royal family but in my heart. I will use this gathering in Charles’s honor to repudiate my sister.

After the ceremony I sit beside the king in a hall full to overflowing with the most important nobles in France. Doubtless our guests are looking forward to the first of a week’s worth of lavish banquets and entertainments. Louis is distracted, talking with the
Count of Sarrebruck about crusade preparations. I can never see the count without thinking of his cousin, the Sieur de Joinville. There is something about the mouth of the first that reminds me of the second. But today I am in no mood to be pleasantly preoccupied.

Turning to Beatrice, under cover of all the noise and motion I say, “Well, Countess, here is pomp enough to satisfy even the insatiable Count d’Anjou. And an opportune moment for him to be out of Provence as well—I hear that he is not very popular there.”

Beatrice looks up at me with vicious eyes. She is fuming over the fact that the dais on which we sit was deliberately constructed so that she sits considerably below me, and below Blanche of Castile. I had surprisingly little trouble suggesting this arrangement to the dragon. She loves both her sons; like me, however, she is wise enough to see that Charles will take every opportunity to infringe on Louis’s rights and good humor. “It is only those rebellious tradesmen in Marseilles. Your Majesty knows well they are content with no one.”

“Only Marseilles? How then can you explain the expulsion of His Holiness the Pope’s nuncios at Arles and Avignon? Uncle Philippe wrote to say that the Holy Father was not leastwise pleased.”

Beatrice colors. She knows I am needling her, but what can she do? My tone is pleasant and I am queen.

“Well, never mind,” I continue. “All men cannot have my husband’s facility for ruling. Louis is beloved wherever he goes. How fortunate that Charles will never be a king, given his deficits.”

I can actually see Beatrice’s teeth grinding. How I wish the noise of the crowd were a little lower so I could hear them.

Tired of my company, Beatrice rises and moves into the crowd, seeking the arm of her swaggering husband. No matter. My dear
Yolande approaches, shepherding the new wife of Hugh of Châtillon, Count of Saint-Pol. Rising to greet them, a distinction I did not show my sister when she came to take her seat earlier, I am all smiles. I have a message to send in the course of these events. The little countess will be the first of my couriers, but I will employ as many as necessary, and speak often and loudly until my words reach distant shores; until they reach my sister the Queen of England.

Having accepted the ladies’ reverence, I draw their arms through mine as if the countess had the same claim on my friendship as Yolande. “I sat too long at this morning’s ceremony,” I say. “Let us walk awhile.”

Saint-Pol’s wife is the daughter of the Count of Guines, a vassal of my uncle Thomas, Count of Flanders, and master of territory very close to the English Channel. I dearly hope she repeats to her father all that she sees of my treatment of Beatrice over the next days, and all that she hears. “Countess,” I address the girl with all the solicitude I can muster, “His Majesty is so pleased that your husband has taken the cross, and I am happy you will be part of my collection of ladies when we set sail for the Holy Land.” In truth I have heard she is the last sort of woman I would wish to spend time with—a childish, petty thing with a talent for gossip. Luckily she is also precisely the sort of girl whose head is easily turned by royal attention.